Lone Star
The night was bright with rhinestone stars.
The wind, it cut to bone.
He saddled up his cuttin' horse
To look for steers long gone.
He headed north into that wind,
His chin against his chest.
His saddle creaked an awful song.
His gelding wanted rest.
Its hooves clacked hard against the rocks.
Its nostrils flared with steam.
He clenched his fingers in his gloves
Though warmth was but a dream.
At last he saw them on the rise
Like ghosts against the sky.
Their breath trailed snakelike from their heads.
That wind, it burned like lye.
He got them home real late that night.
His cabin's windows shone.
He gave his thanks, turned out the light,
This Texas star, alone.
© Larry Thomas
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written
permission.
This poem appeared previously in Cutting Horse Chatter, published by
the National Cutting Horse Association.
Poor Souls
Some say the cowboy
is passé, gone the way
of buggy, quill and candle;
that the only chaps now
are buckled to the dust-
collecting legs
of mannequins in museums,
draping the dreamlike
bones of legend.
Poor souls, these highfalutin
ignoramuses, who,
speeding down the interstate
through far West Texas,
miss Marfa, Alpine,
Ft. Davis and Marathon
and their out-of-the-way
cafes abuzz each daybreak
with the drawled price of cattle
and the dull luminosity
of tarnished silver
spur-jangle.
© Larry Thomas
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written
permission.
Bob Wire
Once the range was open.
The horizon was the fence.
The boundless grass for grazing
made all the difference.
They owned the land before them,
As far as they could ride.
They knew not deed or title,
Relied on trust and pride.
Their bed the ground below them,
Their roof the starlit sky,
Whatever they could carry
Would surely get them by.
Then came it barbed and twisted,
That endless strand of wire.
It left the cattle listless,
And doused the cowhands' fire.
© 2001, Larry Thomas
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written
permission.
About Larry D. Thomas:
Larry D. Thomas has been appointed the
2008 Texas State Poet Laureate.
Larry Thomas has been interviewed by the Texana
Review, which features "News, Views & Tall Tales from the
Lone Star State." You can listen to a podcast interviews from August
18, 2006 and hear Larry reading selections from his books in September
8, 2006 and September
9, 2006 podcasts.
Larry D. Thomas retired in
early '98 from his position in criminal justice management to devote full-time to his
poetry. He grew up in West Texas, owned a few horses, and spent some of his most
memorable summer moments on West Texas ranches. His poetry has appeared in
Texas Longhorn Trails, Cutting Horse Chatter, The Equine Image and in numerous national
literary magazines. Larry is listed in the Directory of American Poets and Fiction
Writers.
Read more at Larry D.
Thomas'
web site.
His book, The Lighthouse Keeper, is available through
the publisher Timberline Press, 6281 Red Bud, Fulton, Missouri 65251. The book
was hand-crafted and hand-set by the publisher, Clarence Wolfshohl, who's been in the
business for twenty-five years.
In March, 2008
Texas
A&M University Press Consortium published Larry D. Thomas'
New and Selected Poems, as the fourth volume in the TCU
Texas Poets Laureate Series. Larry Thomas is the 2008 Texas Poet
Laureate. The publisher comments. "... Thomas explores
the natural world of Texas—its animal icons like the Hereford or hawk
or rattlesnake, the larger-than-life geography, which is the stuff out
of which legends are made..."
The 96-page book is
available for $15.95 from the
publisher,
Amazon, and other book sources.
Larry Thomas' collection of poetry,
Stark Beauty, was published
by Timberline Press in
October 2005. He comments, "All of the poems in the collection are
set in far West Texas where I was born and reared. It is a handset
letterpress edition (also hand-stitched and hand-bound) printed on linen
paper with four original woodcut illustrations...I was deeply honored to learn that
Stark Beauty was
selected by the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum as First
Runner-Up in the 2006
Western Heritage
Wrangler Award competition."
Stark Beauty was named as a
Spur
Award Finalist by the Western
Writers of America.
Stark Beauty is
available directly from the publisher at $15.00 per copy, plus a $2.00
handling/shipping charge: Timberline Press,
6281 Red Bud, Fulton, Missouri 65251.
Larry Thomas' book-length collection of poems,
Amazing Grace,
published by Texas Review Press, is the winner of
the 2003
Western
Heritage Award from the
National
Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, a top literary award for work that
celebrates the historical or contemporary West.
Amazing Grace also
won the 2001 Texas
Review Poetry Prize. Texas Review Press is a member
of the Texas A&M University Press Consortium, and the Texas Review
Poetry Prize is one of
the premier poetry/book publication prizes in the Southwest.
Amazing Grace was
selected by Western Writers of America as First Runner-up/Finalist in the
2002
Spur Award for Poetry competition
The book is available through
Texas
A&M University Press Consortium (800-826-8911).
In late 2002 Pecan Grove
Press published Larry Thomas's collection of poetry, The Woodlanders:
You can read more about it
here at the
Pecan
Grove Press web site.
In March 2004, the
Texas
A&M University Press Consortium published Larry Thomas's collection of poetry,
Where Skulls Speak Wind, which is the winner of the 2004 Texas
Review Poetry Prize.
Where Skulls Speak Wind
is the winner of the 2004 Violet Crown Book Award (Literary Prose
and Poetry category). The awards, also granted for fiction and
nonfiction and presented annually in Austin, Texas, are sponsored by the
Writers'
League of Texas and Barnes
& Noble Booksellers, and carry a cash prize of $1,000.00.
The three winners (one in each category) also receive a beautiful, etched
crystal trophy to commemorate the award. No other literary award in
Texas granted for a book of poetry published during a calendar year
carries a larger cash prize.
