A Stranger Done Come to Cowboy Town

8. Cowardice
It was never set in concrete
We signed no contract
I never stamped a drawing
or shared a bootleg
or even a sketch on a napkin like some kind of starchitect
You described what you wanted
I described what I thought would fit
Then:
a curveball lands you across the country
And like the haunted building that stands unfinished in the middle of the block
the plans we never made must stay on hold

9. Starting to hit a wall
I ought to drive with music off like cowboys did way back
'Cause then my brain might give me poems instead of diddly jack.

10. A Cowboy Poem about my Trusty Steed
I’ll never drive a big ol’ truck. I’ll never ride a horse.
And god almighty knows I’ll never shell out for a Porsche,
But there’s one car I’ll drive until the day it hits the dirt,
And when she gives me her last mile, I know I’ll feel the hurt.

This little car has brought me from the east out o’er the plains
And chugged along I-55 through torrents of fall rains.
She rallied through the blizzards of the Minnesota north
and echoed with the fireworks exploding on the forth.

My little red Corolla took me up Nebraska’s ramp,
A-zoomin’ down I-80 like a nascaar racing champ.
She weathers winds on 25 without a single swerve
While giant trucks and trailers pull aside from losing nerve.

One day, when my big brain decided I’d head into town,
A snow that I had clear ignored began a-fallin’ down.
The afternoon had tricked us at a balmy fifty-five.
Then whiteout fell upon us and I weren’t sure we’d survive.

The cars around us one-by-one pulled over in distress,
But my car kept on trucking with her handy ABS
And then at last we stumbled on a little caravan
A line of folks all rolling through as careful as they can

The snow a-piled up until we couldn’t see the road,
And lightning flashed so close and bright it set the white aglow.
Then ice encased the windows so I couldn’t see left-side,
But still we pressed on forward with the crash fence as our guide

My tiny car, like Rudolf, led us all back to Cheyenne,
And rolled into her parking spot an hour late from plan.
I swore right then I’d never drive her through another gale
‘Cause if I try it twice, I might not live to tell the tale.

12. A Sonnet for the Trimble X9
The laser scanner has no thoughts
it merely finds a billion dots
it measures, calculates, compares
by magic stored in its softwares.

Then when I tromp in from the field
the scanner’s secrets are revealed
It shows me wild, wondrous things
like pixel ghosts and timelapse swings

In one spot I spy three of me,
another place, a surreal tree
I think is made up of one man
who’s moved through several different scans

Alas, these demons I delete;
It’s only me who thinks they’re neat.

Spoiler

I DID MY TAXES. Also if I think I can do it without getting in trouble... I love to find odd things when I'm processing laser scans, so maybe I'll screenshot a few and send them to my personal email to upload somewhere lol

13. American Antelope
In my November misery
I trudged (drove) the
empty obstacle twixt
work and freedom

but there you were
proud atop the hill
four cloven hooves
solidly placed
your harem scattered
below amongst the
brown, waving grass

Like a courtly herald
you met my eye
blared and bucked
announcing me to
your wary listeners
then all together pranced away
white rumps blinking
pronged horns dancing

my first welcome
my first time coming home

Spoiler

Friends I literally bought a telephoto months ahead of plan so I could get the pronghorns

14. Small Mercies
The jobsite office restrooms remind me of Taiwan like the pipes overseas are sensitive sometimes people don’t even like to flush toilet paper down they just have a bin full of toilet paper that’s, you know, and the guy who sits behind me had to send an email to everyone to remind them to and I quote “PLEASE PLEASE do not flush any items beyond our provided toilet paper down our fixtures” which I believe is true everywhere even in the porta-johns so why do people keep messing that one up like hello for real our plumbing has gone out six times and we’ve barely been on site for six months but at least by some miracle I have never had aunt flow visit while the bathrooms were broken.

15. I was thinking about cowboy poems until
at work and everything
is normal and the trailer
bubbles with my coworkers
chit-chatting/arguing/brainstorming/yelling and I
scroll on my phone and
daydream about cowboys and
wouldn’t the hundred-mile-per-hour wind gusts from last month
make for a great cowboy poem? and I
have RhymeZone up on the smallest monitor of my in-office setup while forklifts
beep outside and cranes
swing ten-ton hunks of electrical gear and I
imagine operators in ten-gallon hats
spurring the King-Kong crawler crane along like a horse and then

I see the text.
I’m already on my phone of course I see it.
I have to leave.