I used wake with the moon, starin' up the stars
Have a handle of whiskey for breakfast
I'd split from place to place
Wherever some easy money was
And if I ran into trouble,
brother did I fly
For I didn't need no permanent poison
I gone all over the south
And then the west
Livin' in all the honky tonk bars
Workin' in all the dude ranches
My head was held high
My lonesomeness was held low
And my ethics were somewhere between
I carried with me my guitar
Up north I played Bob Dylan
Down south I played Johnny Cash
All while slowly writin' my own song
I'd make girl to girl with sinless assumptions
It didn't matter her personality, long as she was pretty
I never cared if I done 'em wrong
My Colt rode 'round with me
Long with her six silver ponies
Them ponies disappeared after a while
They went to saloon ceilings, they went to kneecaps, they went to gator heads
I'd drink moonshine in Dallas
Shoot smack in San Francisco
Never thinkin' I might show up early for eternity
I broke arms in Amarillo
Broke noses in Nashville
Broke pool sharks in Sioux City
All the while breakin' most hearts
I read Jack Kerouac, Ed Abbey, Larry McMurtry, Herman Hesse,
Ernest Hemingway, Hunter Thompson, Ken Kesey, Karl Marx,
The best thing I read was poker faces; hard to read sometimes
Then one time I found me a woman whom I didn't wanna leave
She had far out eyes which were as dark as the sea
We rode along and settled up in the Dakota country
But to my surprise she ended up leavin' me
After spendin' a long winter down in The Rockies
I got a job in Denver, but it didn't last at all
'Cos I split the boss's brow while standin' tall
Now I'm out of jail, I got me a friend that lasts
His name's morphine,
he's the nicest thing I've seen
Together we're gonna settle down and go
Nice ending Paul. It certainly is a Ramblin Cowboys lament. Nice descriptive piece. I like the accent. 10 from giddy up Cowboys on her mind, Tai
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Heavy. I thought only Californian cowboys had dissident literary tastes...