About
Darin Brookman
Poems
Book
Contact Information
About Darin Brookman:
Darin Brookman lives on the Oklahoma and Texas border near Hollis, Oklahoma. Along with his wife Jeanette and children Seth and Katy, he runs a fourth generation cattle and farming operation.
Darin began writing poetry in 1992. Although his duties at home keep him busy most of the time, he regularly attends the gathering in Nara Visa, New Mexico. He was also an invited participant at Elko in 1995 and 2000.
Some Men
Some men aspire to fame and wealth
To find that in the end
The things they've left will turn to dust
And scatter in the wind.
Some men set out to prowl the brush
Consumed by power and greed,
Then find too late they rode right past
The thing their souls most need.
Some yearn to see their name in lights
Or set in steel or stone.
While others carve their legacies
In heart and mind and bone.
Some men might measure their success
By place or worth or gains,
And some content to know they left
A soft hand on the reins.
When it comes time to loose the cinch
And let a tired horse blow,
If what we've touched is better off
It's then true peace we'll know.
So whether in a marbled vault
Or pauper's hill I rest,
I pray some puncher there can say
He just gave us his best.
© 1995, Darin Brookman
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.
Written after the funeral of a friend.
The Gather
(For Nara Visa)As moonlight washes sagebrushed hills
You feel the riders near.
With songs of life and words of truth
For those a'mind to hear.
Their trappings hung on ever' verse,
Their plunder stored in rhyme.
To celebrate a way of life
And mark their place in time.
The ghosts of old ones mingle there.
The words keep them alive.
They've finished shippin' in the fall,
The Red Roan makes his dive.
And gathered not with starry eyes
To grab some gilded ring,
Those fork-ed souls who just need time
To laugh and mourn and sing.
© 1994, Darin Brookman
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.
What is it makes your old yard dog
Bay all night at the moon,
In chorus with the wild coyote's
Archaic clannish tune?
By daylight he's content enough
To lay around and nap.
Domesticated by his look
A ward of table scrap.
But nightfall wakens something deep
Where mind and soul convene.
Some age old longing locked away
Embedded in his genes.
The same thing makes a fella
Who is both steadfast and sane,
Jerk down a rope and join the chase
With slack pitched in his rein.
His slight regard for consequence
Attests to what's inside.
A banner unfurled honestly,
Impossible to hide.
Some know it on the ocean's waves.
Some dig it out of mines.
It finds us on the city streets
Or high up in the pines.
It's played out in the stadiums
For all the multitude,
Or realized in the cedar breaks
In perfect solitude.
That we fool others and ourselves
It matters not at all.
We're ruled by what's inside us
When we hear the coyote call.
© 2003, Darin Brookman
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.
One day come trottin' down the trail
A sorrel colt with flaxen tail
At first I paid him little mind
A sorrel colt ain't hard to find
Then slowly I began to see
Marks left by wiser hands than me
He loped across the tops of trees
He rolled the rocks he split the breeze
At times so clear in his reflection
I saw the most refined perfection
And set to learn his kind refrain
This sorrel colt with flaxen mane
Each day I searched his coffee eye
The way was there if I'd just try
But often in young sorrel's book
I only got a hasty look
Before I had a chance to learn
The page he'd almost rudely turn
And I'd be lost in ignorance
To cut for sign and make some sense
Of what had brought us to the verge
That point where understandings merge
Seems while I searched by sorrel's cue
The more I learned the less I knew
A horseman now I've yet to be
But there are things he taught to me
That we are prone to take by force
And leave the best part of the horse
In arrogance we bang and pound
Until the circle's out of round
We fail to see the subtle hue
We plunder treasures pure and true
Can't understand the power we wield
Just knowing when to push or yield
That actions all breed consequence
Regardless of their innocence
Each word we speak each step we take
Spreads out and out along time's wake
And as the ripples grow and grow
We reap the seeds that others sow
That wisdom age don't guarantee
But just the opportunity
To find the tracks that mark the trail
However faint however pale
Ecclesiastes states it true
In this whole world ain't nothing new
Each breath we take was breathed before
Each burden felt already bore
Some old one long before our time
Has sang the song and felt the rhyme
Left little signs along the way
But sadly who am I to say
Perhaps there always will remain
A sorrel colt with flaxen mane
As revelations tend to hide
It's nice sometimes to have a guide
© 2006, Darin Brookman
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.
Winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award.
Where Sagebrush Grows
Includes:
The
Gather
Archives
Some Men
Said Scorpion to the T'rantula
Tempered Souls
Boogers in the Bushes
Lookin' Back
Instinct
Fine Art
Mad Cows
Just Say No
Parkay
Sally
The Ballad of Skeeter Boyd
and the impressive art of working cowboy Brian Asher throughout (see his web site)
Introduction by Phil
Martin
"About the Artist" by Red
Steagall
Available for $23 postpaid from:
Pair'a Spurs Press
Rt. 2 Box 20
Hollis, OK 73550
See our book review here.
There is a special, limited (50) hardcover edition, signed by Darin Brookman and Brian Asher:
Available for $95 from:
Pair'a Spurs Press
Rt. 2 Box 20
Hollis, OK 73550
Darin Brookman's "Tempered Souls" is included in Cowboy Poetry, The Reunion. See our feature about the book here.
Read Darin Brookman's tribute to Buck Ramsey here.
Contact Information
Darin Brookman
Rt. 2 Box 20
Hollis, Oklahoma 73550
The BAR-D Roundup | Cowboy Poetry Week
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