Stan Paregien's Poetry
Page 3

Monkeying Around
by Stan Paregien, Sr.
Copyright 1992

Cowboys don't work all of the time,
Although they complain a lot of that.
Fact is, they swim, bicycle and fly
And play with club, racket and bat.

But many of the bunkhouse cowboys
On Osage land coon hunt year around.
There in northeast Oklahoma's thickets
On many a night is where they're found.

Now Snuffy Johnson, an old cowhand,
Was one of the best coon hunters anywhere.
And when other hunters saw his secret,
They could only stand and stare.

You see, ol' Snuffy owned a pet monkey
Named Willie, who carried a loaded gun.
That monkey would chase a coon up a tree
And shoot it down as well as could be done.



One night the cowboys were out hunting
And their dogs chased and treed a coon.
They pulled all the dogs away, except Ike,
The best dog, who bayed there in the moon.

Ike stood at the base of the tree,
Howling at the coon way up on a limb.
Then along came Snuffy and little Willie,
Ready to put the coup de grace to him.

Little Willie shimmied up the mighty oak
And searched the branches left and right.
Unknown to anyone, though, the coon had Jumped to
another tree and was in flight.

Poor little Willie continued searching,
Running through the tree, bottom to top.
Finally, totally exhausted, little Willie
Swung to the ground and came to a stop.

Little Willie pulled his pistol out
And shot ol' Ike absolutely dead.
Ike's master naturally fumed at Snuffy:
"Why'd he shoot my dog? What's in his head?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, I guess,"
Snuffy said as he sat down on a log.
"There's one fault that my monkey has:
He can't stand a lying coon dog."
		







How Dry Was It?
by Stan Paregien, Sr. 

Copyright 1992

My friend, novelist Elmer Kelton,
Tells the sad story mighty well,
About what happened years ago
When Texas went through a dry spell.

His book, The Time It Never Rained,
Tells in fiction about events so true.
And here's my contribution in rhyme
About what happened in about 1952.

"How dry was it?" a greenhorn asked
The crusty cowboy with a gray beard.
"Son, be glad you wasn't around,"
He said as at the noon sun he leered.

"That ball of fire cooked the grass
And sucked the moisture out of the land.
It sapped cattle of all but horn and hide,
And turned pastures into waves of sand.

"Why, to tell you the god-awful truth,
It got dryer'n dust in a mummy's pockets.
Caused my own elbows to lock right up
For lack of moisture in the sockets.

"Out around Lubbock and Plainview towns 
It was so dry the dogs got chased by trees.
And in the Guadalupe Mountains toward El Paso
The lizards carried canteens, don't you see?

"It was so dry in old Abilene town that
Dairy cows gave evaporated milk each day.
And in Amarillo it was so dry the chickens
Plucked themselves tryin' the heat to defray.

"It got so danged dry there for a while
A cowboy had to gulp six times to spit.
Why, and this here is the gospel truth,
It was so dry we got blisters where we sit.

"In West Texas the weather was so dry folks
Put stamps on letters with safety pins.
And there in the Brazos River there were
40-lb. catfish which hadn't developed fins.

"Strange, though, how you got used to it,
Workin' cows under dry conditions so grim.
Why, when one cowboy got hit with a raindrop
It took two buckets of sand to revive him.

"Now, a feller needs a little perspective
To understand this dry Texas atmosphere.
For even back in the time of Noah's flood,
We barely got a trace of rain out here.

"But the year of the big drought was tough,
And I was cowboyin' for old J.B. Slaughter.
He had been a rich rancher at one time,
But now he had 6,000 cattle and no water.

"One hot July day me and Mr. Slaughter
Drove into town to try to slack our thirst.
There was a cloud driftin' here and there,
But never enough to commence to burst.

"The boss man and me, after a snort or two,
Went to see the banker, one Mr. Jim Hank.
The banker said to us, 'If it don't rain soon,
Boys, I'm gonna have to rob a bank.'

"'Shoot-fire,' my boss said, thinking about            
His big loan soon coming due to Mr. Hank.
'If it don't rain soon, you might just say
That I already did rob me a bank.'"





The Cowboy Wedding
by Stan Paregien, Sr.
Copyright 1992

It was a simple cowboy wedding,
Nothing fancy or well-to-do.
They had it down by the Frio River,
With a backdrop of water so blue.

Folks came by wagon and horseback
From quite a few miles around.
There was a lot of handshaking
And plain socializing to be found.

Finally the preacher rode up and
Got in a position to do his job.
And from his vest pulled out his watch,
By its sparkling gold chain fob.

"Where's your bride?" he asked the cowboy,
Who was shaking right down to his socks.
The cowboy said, "She's answering nature's 
Call out behind them great big rocks."

The homely bride came out dressed in a gown
Made of feed sacks her mama bleached white.
And just the sight of his bulging bride
Made the cowboy shake with some fright.

If repentance could have saved the cowboy,
He would have repented of what he'd done.
But that was not the way it was to be,
For her father stood close to his shotgun.

A five-year-old girl asked her mamma,
"Why is the bride dressed in white, mommy?"
The mother said, "Because, child, white 
Is the color of happiness, don't you see?"

"I see," said the girl, looking then at
The groom, her sweating uncle Mack.
"If white means happiness," she said,
"Why is the groom dressed all in black?"