Legend

Cowboy UP – NaPo 2025 Day Twelve

Today I was to try writing a poem inspired by Wallace Stevens’ verse, “Peter Quince at the Clavier.”  My poem was to reference myth, legend, and/or other well-known stories. Not to get too complex, this poem was also to feature wordplay (including rhyme), mix formal and informal language, and contain multiple sections that “play with” the theme. I was also to incorporate at least one abstract concept such as desire, sorrow, pride, or whimsy. Whew. Happy Saturday, y’all.

Pardon Me, Messers. Dobie and Grey

  I 

Please, do not get me started
debunking the hard drinking, sharp shooting, dude
with a solid heart. A good, God-fearing man of independence and
self-reliance (but they could live in conditions most of us couldn’t).

Today, cowboy is a status symbol
consisting of some form of horseless truck
bigger than a dad-blamed Greyhound bus.
While real, the Buffalo Bill we knew was bullshit.

Cattle drives were real and so were the cowboys.
Black ones, Mexican ones, and po’ white ones.
But this is the age of fiction where facts and history
may just get you arrested by modern day SS of 1939.

C&W music aside, the only cowboys known for singing
came later when actors sang about those real boys,
home on the range and yodeling and all that.
I don’t know how they felt about the brand.

           II

But cowboy songs, then and now, are all about
desires for things like water, food, and a decent scout.
And some boom-boom along the way at the cat house,
maybe a sarsaparilla with a dash of cherry while out and about.

Who today can afford the wrong cow in the wrong place?
Lawyers and doctors and candlestick makers.
Real cowpokes made for silly jokes, but those are
the myths and legends, like Pecos Bill and Judge Roy Bean (also real),

were much more fun and interesting
than the boring factual truth, that
your ropin’ and cookin’ skills meant more
than shooting or the Marlboro Man himself.

Justice? If he stole your hoss, ya hung ‘im.
We learnt that watchin’ Lonesome Dove on TV.
And the Hat Creek Cattle Company, heroes of days past,
who stole most of the cattle they pushed to Montana.

But if you want them ol’ boys to look at you funny,
talk to them about ideas like love, justice
(it was legal to shoot Apache, Cheyenne, or Sioux),
freedom, and what happiness meant to them.

    III

But still, we love the stories, the art,
the concepts of the rugged pioneer who
tipped his hat and killed all the bad guys
for, and to protect, our wives and our daughters.

Men who made the world a better place
by stealing, lying, cheating, and murdering.
For better or worse, our past is what it is.
However we may feel about it.

It’s fun to ride alone. To be glorified.
To be the story told to children
to make them better people. But
only cows and chickens love vegetarians.

Look both ways and enjoy the stories.
But mind the gap between reality and fantasy.
While a man hears what he wants to hear and a woman believes
what she wants to believe,
many of both live to seek the truth.

A to Z Blog Challenge Theme Reveal (2018)

Let’s roll out monsters, goblins, ghouls, and all the fantastic creatures that existed in the minds of men and women from before anyone could write until the present day. Fantasy is not fake when we believe it; and we have for over 100,000 years of human imagination from which to draw. Unfortunately, writing is only about five or six thousand years old. But going way back in time, our innate human ability to imagine is phenomenal. That is my reveal: fantasy creatures displayed front and center.

From angels to zombies, I will select fantastic creatures from legend, fairy tales, fables, and myth. From poems, books, and stories, and from cultures around the world; I will package up those delectably stunning and enchanting fantasy life forms and bring them to you in words and forms.

During April we all do a lot of reading and writing. If you count taxes, arithmetic too. It is a busy, but fun-filled month. I shall attempt brevity and will only present one or two creatures per day beginning with “A” on Sunday, the first day of April, for the 2018 A to Z Blog Challenge.

As my trailer here, I present two Celtic kings: The Forest King, better known as the Oak King or sometimes as Green Man, along with his nemesis, The Holly King, often depicted as a woodsy version of Santa Clause.

The Forest or Oak King
The Holly King

Semiannually, these two battle and fight to the death for supremacy. One time per year, each defeats the other. Depending on the culture and beliefs, a final battle is on summer and winter solstices, or, and more logically, at the time of the Fall or Spring equinoxes. During summer, the Oak King reigns. The Holly King kills the Oak King and reigns in the winter. It is the classic holly vs. ivy symbolic battle called out in King Henry VIII’s, Green Groweth The Holly.

The Oak and Holly Kings Battle

The battle is also echoed many times in other myth and folklore such as the fights between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or Lugh and Balor in Celtic legend. In all cases, one must die for the other to triumph.

Regarding such battles and the killing of one king, god, or man, George Frazer wrote,”But we have seen that the very value attached to the life of the man-god necessitates his violent death as the only means of preserving it from the inevitable decay of age.” They are two essential parts of the whole (seasonal reality) that battle all year long. Despite being enemies, without one, the other would no longer exist. Sort of reminds one of yin and yang, doesn’t it?

Look both ways in all seasons of life. Mind well the gaps.

Note: I will be participating in the National Poetry Writing Month challenge separately. Those poems will be identified as NaPoWriMo. This means that during April “Our Literary Journey” will have two posts each day, and one on Sundays after the first.