Tag Archives: Texas

DIRECTIONS TO LOS NOVIOS RANCH

Travel / tagged , / / by

DIRECTIONS TO LOS NOVIOS RANCH
for Claire and George

A hundred miles south of San Antone
Los Novios means The Sweethearts

They had Brahmas in the pasture
they had a gator in the pond

They got big Blue Indigo snakes
there to eat them pesky rattlers

Though mesquite may be as close
as you get to a sweetheart tree

The roadrunner on the woodpile
is all puffed up and singing
Hey girls, look at me

TEN GENERATIONS OF BUTTERFLIES

Environment, Nature, Relationships, Travel / tagged , , , , / / by

TEN GENERATIONS OF BUTTERFLIES
or BACK TO THE GARDEN

It is mid November
and there are Monarchs
everywhere
at our new Texas home

It takes five generations
each way for them to get
from Mexico to Canada
and back

(Stan said so, and he
would know)

About sixty years ago
we lived for a year or two
at my grandfather’s farm

He had a garden
A Canadian national treasure
(The newspapers all said so)

Ten thousand trees planted
on the bald-assed prairie
rich with fruit and flowers
no one else would even test
that far north and west

I watch generation nine or ten
lightly and unerringly
almost home again

and feel his DNA
happily spinning
in every cell

COFFEE HOUSE HOUSTON

Audio Recordings / tagged , , / / by

COFFEE HOUSE HOUSTON

Sitting outside around the round table
Dallas and Buda and the boys
coffee cigarettes and stories

Inside of each, tables within tables
other Budas, other Dallas
votes being taken and taken again

A clear enough majority
though far from unanimous
Texas sunshine helped the swing

Fine then, another cigarette
another coffee – one more story
nobody’s in a hurry ‘round here

YOU ARE THE U IN HOUSTON TO ME

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Travel / tagged , / / by

YOU ARE THE U IN HOUSTON TO ME

How could I ever leave you love
if you didn’t live in Houston

If it wasn’t for the humid swamp
and the trash along the bayou
how could I say good-bye to you

You know I love you dearly
and it ain’t you that makes me run
but Houston traffic’s far from fun
and every Bubba’s got a gun

Yet even with all of that
and the country’s worst damn air
you know that I’ll keep coming back
as long as you are there

And I’ll keep leaving Houston too
after a muggy smoggy day or two

One of these days I hope you know
I’ll take you with me when I go

TURTLE BOOTS

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged , , , / / by

TURTLE BOOTS

I bought a pair of boots one time
made from an old sea turtle’s hide
The prettiest boots you ever saw
but a little bit tight along the side

I figured it would only take a while
to break these babies in just right
and in the meantime at least I’d have
the pleasure of taking them off at night

Now a hundred years don’t seem long
to an old sea turtle, or his next of kin
but it appeared it was gonna take that long
to break those miserable damn boots in

I tried everything to ease that constant pain
I soaked ‘em, I oiled ‘em, I bent ‘em, I boiled ‘em
If anyone had suggestions, no matter how wild
I got out those boots and sure enough tried ‘em

But those son of a guns just continued to pinch
I couldn’t get them to move 1/16th of an inch
wild thoughts of destruction started filling my day
but the boots were too pretty I’d just give them away

I gave them to my younger brother first
by logic his feet should be smaller you see
but after a month or so he gave them back and said
he just couldn’t accept all that charity

So I gave them away to friend after friend
but I guess gratitude ain’t what it used to be
and the results were always the same in the end
I got those turtle boots back, but I mostly lost
the friend

and every time I got them back
I’d put them on and wear them a while
and never could figure how one pair of boots
could cause so much pain and still have so much
style

But I gave them at last to a chiropractor down in
Texas
and I didn’t get ‘em back, so I expect he’s got ‘em
beat

because if he can’t adjust those boots
he can always adjust his feet