Cowboy Poetry

I'm a big fan of the cow horse the Quarter Horse as a working cow horse, but there was another equine that was very important in the settlement of the West. This is a poem about the draft horse.

He's the workhorse of the species who pulls the heavy load,

he can haul a load of freight or a wagon down the road.

He is mighty, he is tall, perhaps 19 hands high.

He has a build for pulling and is willing to comply.

He is a strong and gen...

As we've been in the pandemic and working from home, it seems like I'm on zoom calls all the time. There's so much zoom and so much social media that I developed a a new Kansa state song in honor of the state of Kansas. with apologies to Dr. Brewster Higley, the author of the original Home on the Range, this poem is called zoom on the range.

Zoom zoom on the range where the virtual pictures display

where you will not be heard if yo...

If you go to a rodeo, you'll see that the bull riders and the bronc riders are wearing fancy Batwing chaps, usually with friends that really shows for the competition. I have a couple of chaps that we use here at the ranch. One are these heavy duty workshops, complete with manure. They're very thick and heavy leather. They really come in handy if you're working like with locust trees on the fence line. And then I have my fancy show...

There are lots of unsung heroes in our society today.

But certainly, let's not forget the farmer where it all begins.

There are lots of unsung heroes here in our world today,

teachers and police, the guy who brings the mail our way.

First Responder, waitress firefighter, the forklift driver with the load.

The store clerk soldier janitor, the trucker on the road.

What about the moms and dads working hard to make ends meet

those cari...

I thought I'd seen it all, and then I got a call from a guy in town. He said, "We want you to come help us do goat yoga." I said, "Goat what?" Yes, goat yoga is a thing.

So we rounded up some goats, we went into town and built a pen and watched it happen. This poem is called "You Go Yoga Goat."

I thought I had seen everything, but I was surely wrong

because I found something new when goat yoga came along.

We brought our goats to to...

Fences are something we take for granted in these days. As you drive down the Kansas countryside, there are fences all over. It's interesting to learn that the very first fences, which were built in this country, were built not to keep cattle in as they are today. They were built to fence cattle out, because homesteaders were starting to plant crops in an era of open range. This poem that I wrote is called "Both Sides of the Fence"...

As we have adjusted to life with coronavirus, we're working under stay-at-home orders and told to do social distancing.

We're told to do everything virtually nowadays. Well, we're doing our best, but Mother Nature will only go so far. This even applies to our veterinarian. Here's a poem I wrote called Virtual Reality.

Due to coronavirus, the vet had changed his ways.

Virtual consultations now filled his practice days.

The health de...

Cowboys love to eat, and it was an essential part of modern-day life as well as the old cattle drives. The cookie was a very important part of the crew in the old times of those great cattle drives from Texas to Kansas. This poem is a tribute to that Chuck Wagon. It's called Our Friend Chuck Wagon.

An army travels on its stomach. A wise person once said,

"Because of food supplies important when a group's marching ahead,

we have to ...

Economics has been called the dismal science, kind of like the economist who has forecast 10 of the last 5 recessions. I have a lot of friends who are economists, and they know that making forecasts is a very risky proposition. One friend of mine says, "Give them a date or give them a number but never give them both." When you study economics, you come across, of course, the law of averages, and this poem is called "On Average."

Tw...

The old-time cowboys were always shown with bandanas. These bright pieces of fabric that they wore around their necks, sometimes we'd call them wild rags. Turns out those bandanas had a lot of different uses. Now in the coronavirus era, we find they might even have some uses today. This poem is called, Multi-Tool.

In the days of the Old West if you would look and check,

you'd find a cowboy would wear a bandana around his neck.

It w...

In 1806, an explorer named Zebulon Pike, traveled through what became the eastern part of Kansas. On September 12th, he wrote in his journal, ''Past very rough Flint Hills, my feet blistered and very sore''. With that, he gave our Flint Hills region its name, and he was right. You need to wear good boots out in these hills. This poem is titled The Kansas Flint Hills.

A traveler leaves Kansas City going west on interstate.

He comes ...

The old-timer said, "The best thing for the inside of a kid is the outside of horse." I certainly believe that, I enjoy horseback riding to the point that sometimes I lose track of time. This poem is called, "Horse holiday."

I had to go to work, but it was still early yet,

a thought came to my brain and soon my mind was set.

I calculated minutes as the morning clock I had and thought,

"Hey, I've got time to get in a horseback ride....

Cowboys love to train animals. Sometimes, the animals can train us. This poem is entitled 'Horse training'.

On a hot summer morning, I walked out to train a young horse we were teaching to ride in the ring. The flies were buzzing in the hot morning sun as I walked to the barn with my two little sons. One said, "Dad, you see those two horses right there

standing together like they were a pair.

They get close together and that's how ...

Out here on the ranch, one of the most important crops we produce is hay. It's very important that we harvest peri hay, alfalfa, and have hay stored up for winter feed for our livestock. This poem is called Hay There.

Growing up here on the ranch back when I was just a kid,

Helping bale up hay was the first field job I ever did.

I was too young to drive a tractor, too little to do much,

But I could go to the hay field and help with...

I have discovered a new thing and that is, my phone can navigate me wherever I am going using a global positioning satellite. It's amazing. This poem is called "Global Positioning."

I have a dead gum GPS. It's right there on my phone.

It seems it finds any address mankind has ever known.

I enter a number and the street.

It finds the thoroughfare. It's simply one amazing feat.

My phone directs me there.

It tells me to go right or le...

My wife and family and I live on the Lazy T Ranch near Manhattan, Kansas. We run cattle and horses and some other animals. If you have livestock in the hot summer heat, then you're going to have flies.

We contend with flies. This poem I wrote is called Fly Right.

Three cowboys from different places came into a Texas saloon for a drink to relieve their hot afternoon.

The flies were buzzing from near and from far as the three cowboys...

Howdy folks, I'm Ron Wilson, poet laureate. The cowboy really came alive in legend at the time of the great cattle drives. The goal of the Texas drovers was to get to Abilene. This poem is in honor of the first cow town.

One of the first cow towns the world had ever seen was the little community known as Abilene. It all began after the Civil War here with demand for beef from the western frontier. A livestock dealer named Joseph Mc...

This poem is the true story of a very simple encounter I had one day while riding horseback. It made me think about our pioneer ancestors and the things that we find that might have reminded us about what has gone on before. The poem is entitled, "Finding A Fence Post."

I was riding through the hills one breezy, late fall day

Counting cattle and enjoying the ride along the way

I was in the middle of a pasture, quite large, I just...