BOBBY COHOON
North Carolina
About Bobbie Cohoon

 

 

Bury Me Not . . .

A grave marker on the prairie,
small stones piled sorta oval or round,
marks the spot where a cowboy lies resting
‘neath the hot parched ground.

I stops my steed, takes off my hat like
I been learnt to do.
But my mind keeps wonderin’ ‘bout who he
was, and how he bid the world ado.

The vultures ain’t swarming ‘round over head,
so I guess he’s been there a while.
I don’t even recollect seeing a person or town
for many and many a mile.

Maybe it was wild injuns, ambushed him
as he went across the prairie.
Or he could have been an outlaw whose
days had been too many.

No not an outlaw with this
kind of planting.
Why they’d’ve gussied him up and took his
picture, there’d be reward money and ranting.

Could he have been an injun, someone laid away
Christiany like?
With hopes he’d meet the Creator and
that he’d see the light.

I’ll bet he loved the women, Rose in Texas,
or Rose of Alabamy.
Probably learned love and gentleness
sitting on the lap of his mammy.

Maybe he just dropped dead, I’ve heard it’s
happened before.
Riding along one minute,
the next minute you ain’t here no more.

Maybe an injun buried him, and some
spirit came and took him home.
Or maybe he knowed the real God and
now he rides around His throne.

One day I’ll leave here and maybe lay
in a coffin lined in fleece,
and when I meet the cowboy, first thing I’ll
ask is, "what caused you to rest in peace?"

 

 

The Flag Pole


The smartest cowpoke I ever met, was a
feller named Montana Slim.
He could talk, expound and testify about anything
that was said to him.

If you mentioned money, he could tell you
‘bout a dollar, dime or quarter.
Why mention a baby, he could tell you how hot
to boil the water

He could tell you how many people was in the bar
just by counting the feet and dividing by half.
But his math wasn’t quite so good when
he was counting cows and a calf.

I never will forget the day that he
went to a west Texas town.
He got off’n his horse and hitched ‘im up
and started to look around.

He met the mayor, who was puzzled
by a purchase he’d have to make.
A new flagpole for the town square.
It had to be good, his mayorship was at stake.

If someone could climb the pole and measure
on the way down,
But the mayor had a fear of heights and
no-one else was around.

So the mayor got his ax
to cut the pole down.
After it fell he could step it off
and measure it on the ground

Slim watched as the mayor began to chop
But stopped his very first swing
Slim said it wouldn’t work, "you need
to rethink this thing."

So Slim told the mayor,
in that slow west Texas drawl,
"Laying on the ground you’ll find how long it is,
but you need to know how tall!"

 

Gentleman Jim

I never saw a horse I couldn’t ride, why I
even rid Sky Ball Paint.
But with Gentleman Jim that all changed at
first glance he made you want to faint.

Jim was big and strong, and he’d stand with
all his muscles so tight.
It was like he was saying, "come on
cowboy, lets me and you fight."

So I pulled down my Stetson and
looked at Jim with a big Texas grin.
Ol’ Dan Says, "He’ll buck you off in 3
seconds, I’ll bet ten!"

So I jump on and tuckers down,
and slaps him with a hide.
Gentleman Jim looks back at me, one time,
then were off for the ride.

The first buck wasn’t so bad,
but the second seemed we’d never come down.
We were up real high, you could look around,
I swear I could see a far off town.

What happened next is, I can’t remember much,
its sort of a blur.
But it happened when I got Ol’ Jim
With a brand new silver spur.

Jim took the grand tour, all
around the farm,
With me holdin’ on and a prayin’,
"Lord keep me from all harm."

It’s amazin’ how much you can say, so fast,
Hopin’ the Lord will hear.
While you’re on the back of a buckin’ bronc,
and you think the end is near.

I never knew you could live so much
in two seconds of time.
But that’s how long Dan said it was.
I paid him ten, with one silver dime.

Last Letter Home

Dear Nellie,

Here I am in Texas, where
I came to find us land.
I’d’ve been better to have stayed in Virginny,
poor, but still your man.

A week ago I left, I never knowed the
word gallows,
now thats all I can see when
I look out the barred windows of this house.

Shots rang out, everyone ran,
most went and hid.
Why I never neared leather,
and one cowboy laid dead.

I told the Marshall I didn’t do it.
they said it was Texas Red,
But the Marshall told the judge
I shot the cowboy dead.

So I will never find us land,
a place to call our own,
‘cause tomorrow at by this time
my life will be gone.

I’ll never again feel your touch and
no more your caress
‘cause there’s no possibility of me
ever leaving this mess.

The preacher came by and prayed
for my soul.
And he says he knows
angels will take me home.

He’ll take you my shooter,
it’s never been fired.
Yet I’ve killed a man with it,
I am a gun for hire.

Our dreams are now gone,
and the love that we shared
and it was to make you a better life that I left,
that’s how much I cared.

I’ll ask for a short drop,
Then I can hold our love a bit longer,
So I can remember your face in that
few minutes make our love stronger

They’re coming now,
so I send you my love.
Yet I know I’ll see you again
when we both are at home above.

Tex

 

Roses Are Red

Roses are red, ‘ceptin’ in
Texas where they’s yeller.
I’d be plum obliged to
be yer feller.

I’d be so proud to live
and to age
with the prettiest bloom
ever seen on the sage

The day we met it was round
up time in my heart,
and if’n I could corral you at the
homestead we’d never part.

I’d promise to love, trust, honor
and obey,
and from my little
cowgirl I’d never stray.

By your side I’d stay both night
and day,
and promise to love you the cowboy way.

© Bobby Cohoon

 

The Drought of 1859


It was back in 1859, you know
the year it got so hot.
We cooked three meals a day
without a fire ‘neathen’ the pot.

They said east in Caroline,
back where the ‘baccer grows,
they wuz pickin’ lit cigars
up and down all the rows.

We hadn’t seen rain since
since 58 had said good bye.
And every day the sun seemed
to blaze hotter and hotter in the sky.

One day we went out looking
for water on the land,
we filled our canteens up
at a mirage we saw in the sand.

We had nothin’ to drink but spirits,
so we did the best we could.
That this drought was here to stay
was something we all understood.

One day while rocking, there
came a knockin’ at the door.
I got up and answered, I saw
something never seen before.

A cactus knockin’ at my door
was the thing I saw first.
He wanted to get in out of the sun,
said he was dying of heat and thirst.

He was covered in dust, and his
skin was dry it was cracked.
He had fought the heat so long, without water,
his green was turning black.

He took offn’ his bandana and wrung
out the sand he had sweated under a blistering sky.
Then he told of the hardships he had seen
on the range, things that made a cactus cry.

He told of a dehydrated vulture,
that wuz laying eggs already fried.
He told me about a coyote nursing her pups
with powdered milk, and none of them died.

I brought him and explained,
that our well had gone dry some time ago.
But he was welcome to a glass
of spirits, but he had to take it slow.

He started off with one big gulp,
followed by three or for more.
I have never seen a man drink that much
and not be on the floor.

As we drank, we commiserated, the two of us,
all about the drought.
Then as if the drought wasn’t bad enough, I was worried
one day the spirits would run out.

I ask about his family and that’s
when the tears came.
He said he was an orphan, all alone on
the range for many and many years.

His daddy was killed when a cowboy yelled,
"come a ti yi yippee yi yay,"
He was trampled by a confused herd when they
ran the wrong way.

An injun took his mom to San Jacinto
to be some kind of cure
For the yellow rose fever Santa Anna
had during the war.

His sister caught her needle
in the clothes of a kid.
Her roots weren’t deep, and all the way to the
Oregon Country is where she rid.

He couldn’t tell if it was a brother or a sis,
that one little sprout.
It wound up in San Francisco
long before the drought.

It was about this time that
I started to doze.
And just how long he talked while
I slept no-body knows.

I awoke and looked around trying to find my
new friend
But he was gone, he wasn’t there,
he was gone just like my gin.

Was it real or just the spirits, well
I ain’t real sure.
I started ponderin’ that question, when
I swept up a little pile of sand just inside my door.

Read Bobby Cohoon's It Happened One Christmas, posted with other 2002 Holiday poems.

 

 

About Bobby Cohoon:

Bobby Cohoon told us he is "a 41 year old North Carolinian living in the "badlands" of the outerbanks. I have been playing the cowboy songs and traditional music for what seems like the last hundred years.   It is my hope that the cowboy songs and stories and poetry will never die."   Bobbie invites folks to email him. 

 

 

 

 

 

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