A Stranger Done Come to Cowboy Town

Omg year number nine! I'm so close to a decade of NaPo! I unexpectedly moved further west this past fall... but not as far as I would have liked haha.

This year's goals:

• 30 poems?
• A song!
• 6 Cowboy Poems
• Sonnets on Sundays

Wish me luck!

A rough rough index:

1. Work Haikus
2. Sunrise too early
3. 春天鼻水
4. Sweet Things
5. Cowboy Sonnet
6. Monday Reset
7. Dinner Tanka
8. Cowardice
9. Starting to hit a wall
10. A Cowboy Poem about my Trusty Steed
11. Lazy Day
12. A Sonnet for the Trimble X9
13. American Antelope
14. Small Mercies
15. I was thinking about cowboy poems until
16. 阿媽
19. Sunday Sonnet Number 3
20. Cowboy Poem Number 4
25. Cowboy Poem Number 5
26. Sunday Sonnet Number 4
29. Final Song Lyrics
30. Cowboy Poem Number 6

0. I've read a book of cowboy poems and learned a few things
Can I rightly be a cowboy if I never rode a horse?
If my hands have never blistered? If my speaking isn't coarse?
Can I be a cowboy poet if the poems I write are short?
If instead of writing epics, all my thoughts just shout "Abort!"

1. Work Haikus
Tendrils of amber
curl like ferns through hot water
My dry nose softens

The jobsite office
is twelve trailers all smooshed up
into Megazord

Weasels squirm like art.
I squirm and fail. Some tasks are
unavoidable.

(29.) Song Lyric Progress
I grew up where sagegrouse sing
and huff and puff to welcome spring,
and every lek’s a country dancing hall,
where every little speck of green’s
the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen,
and rain’s so sparse it hardly falls at all.

I’ve been too far gone for too dang long,
and I’ve spent darn near a decade out of town.
Now my brain’s rewired to be inspired
by the seas and trees instead of shades of brown.

2. Sunrise too early
I drove to work this morning in daylight
sky baby blue, clouds silver-white
no pink, no purple, no streaking orange.
The sun still pierced like a thousand arrows
through the skeleton steel
but it was too bright to gaze upon in wonder
and too white to simulate the smelting fire.
And as I waddled from my car
I bristled at the warmth ignited under my coat.

The morning is made of soft and dark
navy blue contemplation and eau de green.
I should shiver in the end of night
and wake before the working day begins.

3.春天鼻水



Hear me read it aloud like I'm in first grade haha

Transcribed:
每天我有太多鼻水。
如果春天死，我就會
去到外面看小鳥飛，
然後玩玩到我很累。

Pronunciation:
Měitian wǒ yǒu tàiduo bí​shuǐ.
Rú​guǒ chūn​tiān sǐ, wǒ jiùhuì
qùdào wài​miàn kàn xiǎoniǎo fei
rán​hòu wánwán dào wǒ hěnlèi.

Translation:
Every day I have too much snot.
If spring would just die, I could
go outside and watch the little birds fly
then play until I get tired.

...I sent it to my mom, so we'll see what she says about the grammar. It's a bit simple, but it's the first rhyming poem I've written in Mandarin!

Spoiler

Also thanks @Liminality!! I have a coworker who is really into old power rangers, so I wrote the haiku for her haha.

EDIT: Workshopped it with my mom to fix the grammar up:
每天我有太多鼻水。
如果春天死，我就會
到外面去看小鳥飛，
然後一直玩到我累。

4. Sweet Things
I miss tres leches from the bodega by
my coworker’s apartment, where
they make five flavors:
strawberry, peach, chocolate, vanilla, espresso.
The sponge is so fluffy it melts,
the cream is perfectly dense and perfectly viscous, and
the joy of sharing over
a dungeons & dragons one-shot is
perfectly delicious.
I miss coconut pudding from the bakery in
the Park-to-Shop food court,
the best Chinese grocer
I’ve lived within an hour of ever.
The taro topping in pastel purple
stuck like paste to
the top of my mouth, and
it stayed cold in my car in the
Illinois winters while I
learned gymnastics, learned ballroom, learned hockey
for the first time–
free in my new adulthood.
I miss
enormous blueberries, blood-red strawberries, Rainier cherries, Umatilla watermelon, apricots from my dad’s coworker’s yard, Asian pears from the Japanese orchard on I-80, cosmic crisps from the apple state, invasive blackberries, bursting huckleberries, tart raspberries from
home.

One day, I will miss the plum green tea from the Taiwanese food stall–
strange how a town this small can have one.
It is the taste of home until
this place becomes home too.

5. Cowboy Sonnet
I heard there was a mythic place out west
where cows outnumber people three-to-one,
and all who lived there claimed it was the best,
that no place was or since had it outdone.

So sat I on the train to set my eye
on that fantastic legend past the plains,
but when I ‘rived, the epic open sky
were hemmed in by a flock of army planes.

They scared off all the cattle from the hills
and chased the buffalo down to the dirt,
and army folks, they swarmed the town to fill
the bars and bark up all the local skirts.

So hopped I on the train away to home–
‘twas always better there; no need to roam!

6. Monday Reset
Re-reading
to-do-list
I wrote
on Thursday
squinting
like an eye exam
I've never
seen these words

7. Dinner Tanka
Fridge: nothing to eat
Freezer: also has nothing
(Both, in fact, are full)
Perhaps I should drive somewhere
No, I think that’s too much work

Spoiler

Thaaaanks @Spearmint! I'm glad so many people enjoy the food poem ahhhh