FOLK COLLECTION 11: The Skaggs Foundation Cowboy Poetry Collection

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

1

Paul Zarzyski

Ain't No Life After Rodeo

There ain't no life after rodeo.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

3

Paul Zarzyski

Benny Reynold's Bareback Riggin'

A bacon slab a-boiled black in oil every day.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

7

Paul Zarzyski

Hip-Cocked Broncs

Through gates pivoting like pinball flippers.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

10

Paul Zarzyski

How the Lord Throwed-in with Mom to Make Me Quit the Broncs

Was my mother sayin' rosaries day and night.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

14

Paul Zarzyski

Rosined-Up-'n'-Itchin'-to-Git

He nods for the chute gate.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

18

Paul Zarzyski

Retiring Ol' Gray

Tailor-made, we'd say.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

19

Paul Zarzyski

The Horseman, the Poet, the Code, the Horse

Sizing up each other's hearts, and caught.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

21

Paul Zarzyski

Buck

This December my horse died, I did not.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

23

Paul Zarzyski

Luck of the Draw

That holy moment I rode the bay.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

27

Paul Zarzyski

All This Way for the Short Ride

After grand entry cavalcade of flags.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

30

Paul Zarzyski

Matched Pairs

Was it the boot-cut Wranglers.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

31

Paul Zarzyski

Samurai Cowboy

Hung over from pitchers of Margaritas.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

33

Paul Zarzyski

Escorting Grammy to the Potluck Rocky Mountain Oyster Feed at Bowman's Corner

Lean Ray Krone bellers through a fat cumulus.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

35

Paul Zarzyski

The Heavyweight Champion Pie-Eatin' Cowboy of the West

I just ate 50 pies -- started off with coconut.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

37

Paul Zarzyski

P.S. Pie-Romaniac Sequel

?WHOA now just a Yosemite Sam, talkin' cockney.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

39

Paul Zarzyski

To Wallace

I'm not applauding cathouse towns in Idaho.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

43

Paul Zarzyski

Talkin' Roughstock

Sonny Linger taught son Patrick to talk Roughstock.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

48

Paul Zarzyski

A Song Moment for Ian Tyson

Gripping the latigo-leather straps of the black canvas.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

52

Paul Zarzyski

Monte Carlo Express -- Box 258, 15.3 Miles Home

I've checked fence doing 80 in a low-rider.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

55

Paul Zarzyski

After the Blue Northern, Another True Story

Frozen glint off moonlit bumper chrome.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

57

Paul Zarzyski

Rodeo-Road Founder: Highway Horseplay

Say horse were elk, and elk.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

59

Paul Zarzyski

Staircase

How can lover of buckers lament.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

61

Paul Zarzyski

Partner

As you hit ground off Staircase.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

63

Paul Zarzyski

The Night the Devil Danced with Me

A werewolf moon glares.

All This Way for the Short Ride

FC 11 Z-02

65

Paul Zarzyski

The Night I Hated Baxter Black

?I'm convalescing in a double-sawbuck.