A Cowboy Street Singer I Know (Hey Lenny Boy)) Poem by Paul Henry Dallaire

A cowboy's dream is to go to Nashville Tennessee where all the cowboys seem to go, however, fate has it that this Lenny ends up on a park bench instead of Nashville.
I knew this guy personally and his real name is Len Poulin. I met Len in Ottawa Ontario Canada where we busked the streets together and drank a lot of beer at the Lafayette Hotel there. He is dead now but appeared on a couple small time films such as 'Rent' and maybe 'Cowboyz'produced by Peter Evanchuck (Film maker) of Ottawa, Canada.


There's play I wrote called 'Cowboyz For Breakfast' where Lenny (And he didn't like to be called Lenny) was busking on the streets on Ottawa one evening when a tall thin man wearing a cowboy suit came to him and threw a 100 dollar bill in his guitar case and gave him a beautiful cowboy shirt.
Upon chequing the material it was found to be a thin canvas like material made in the 1940's and Len claimed it was the real Hank Williams that gave him the shirt.
Lenny dreamed he went to heaven that night where he said he met Hank who told he had to come back to earth to do some unfinished business and chose his body to re-incarnate into. So Lenny becomes the real Hank Williams in modern times while Hank attends to unfinished business. So now when we drink after busking we go at the Lafayette Hotel when after too many beers he falls into this Hank williams personality and I'm wondering what the hell is going on with Lenny?
Then there is an episode when Lenny is hypnotized and the real Hank comes out of Lenny's somnabulistic state and tells the hypnotizer to leave Lenny alone and it's none of his business about what is going on and why he, Hank, is possesing the body and mind of Len Corey.


A Cowboy Street Singer I Know (Hey lenny boy)
(From the play Cowboyz for breakfast)


There's cowboy street singer I know
A product to Helen and Jim
They named him Len Corey but he thinks he's Hank Williams
Len Corey Has done lost his head

The cream of his dreams has gone bad
His Nashville's a park bench instead
Royalties he gets is but a small welfare cheque
Hear him singin don't you pay him no mind

Chorus
Hey Lenny sing me an old country song
About a woman's who'se done her man wrong
But please don't play for me 'The Frail Wildwood Flower'
I wanna hear about the flip side'O life

Now this cowboy street singer I know
Has got a red beaten face by the sun
He's a picture of you sleeping under a bridge
With your guitar to kiss you goodnight

Now at night when we thirst for a beer
At the Lafayette house we appear
But confusion steps in when Len talks to Hank (Len talking to himself)
Now all I need is Kitty Wells and Hank Snow


Paul Henry Dallaire
Paul Henry Pub SOCAN
U.S.Rep: ASCAP