by Hal “Nevada” Swift

A fella asked me the other day
If I liked wearin’ jeans an’ boots
I handed it right on back an’ asked
If he liked wearin’ shoes an’ suits

He figgered that that had nothin’ t’do
With the question that he’d asked me
So I said, Okay, let’s take us a look
An’ see what we kin see

I says, as nearly as I kin tell
Suits ain’t got a whole lot goin’
As hard as y’try, if y’spill yer soup
The spots is gonna be showin’

M’jeans git better the older they are
The spots y’don’t hardly see
An’ if they git wrinkled, why nobody cares
An’ y’know, that appeals t’me

They’s a hundert places y’cain’t wear shoes
With boots, it’s a whole lot fewer
You’d never go out t’the barn in shoes
Cuz y’don’t wanna step in man-oo-uhr

But with my boots I go anywheres
From the barn to tomata patch
An’ one nice thing about wearin’ boots
Is m’socks don’t have t’match

So, which is better I guess you asked
But don’t answer back in haste
Cuz a lot depends on where y’work
While the rest is a matter a’ taste

(I’d like to thank Mr. Swift for givin’ us some more pages to turn…when do we get the next one?)

Links

• There’s always a story behind on of Nevada Swift’s poems (sometimes it’s true and sometimes it’s not). Get the whole scoop by visitin’ www.cowboypoetry.com.
• Visit Silver Creek Books and take ’em up on their offer of a copy of Mr. Swift’s book, “Cowboy Poems and Outright Lies“.

© Hal Swift, 2002. All poems are copyright the artist and should not be reproduced without permission.

by The Gallowping Gourmet

Found an old boot
It looks kinda good
The leather is steer
And the heel is wood

It doesn’t fit me
So what should I do
Cut me some carrots
And make me a stew?

It’s not every day
That you find an old boot
And oh did I mention
It came with a foot?

I found this poem posted on my old bulletin board page. (Posted March 03, 2002 at 11:56:35)

© The Gallowping Gourmet, 2002. All poems are copyright the artist and should not be reproduced without permission.

by Byrd Woodward

There’s a legend out west of boots, possessed…
Boots that killed several people.
This spooky pair, were you unaware
Could land you beneath the church steeple….
Laid out in a box, like a felled ox…
Your hands smoothly crossed on your breast…
Church bells would ring, choirs would sing…
Boots shining and black suit pressed.

Made of rattler skin, they’d cover your shin,
As comfy as if made of feathers…
While fording a crick, they’d act like a wick,
You’d be safe in all kinds of weather.

Dry socks and feet, smelling so sweet,
It was a fact no one could deny…
As each owner died, the cowboys all tried
To grab ‘em while whisp’ring ‘goodbye’.

Needless to say, Ol’ Rat had his day,
Making rounds through the cow camp populace…
No one understood why cowhands should

Churn out widows wearing fine lace.
After so many horses lost men to corpses,
An investigation got under way…
No one suspected, the thing that connected
Was those boots…they were snaking their prey.

Boot owner Sam Jones, the ol’ bag of bones,
Married a widow named Grady …
Most folks assumed Ol’ Sam was doomed…
Hilda’d gone through twelve husbands already.

The boots did their trick, Sam’s bucket got kicked…
Mortician Frank had him laid out…
Dressed up so fine, Hilda thought “Dem is mine…
Off dat dere is nod a doubdt!”

Hilda was saying as she was praying,
“No use buryin’ fine snakeskin boots”…
After the hymn, still looking quite grim,

She cried, “take dose boots off his foots.”
Inside the boot, Hilda found loot
Ol’ Sam had been stashing away…
Her hand was stuck, while grabbing th’ bucks,
Poor Hilda went out the same way!

Inside the heel, now was revealed
The sidewinder’s two pizenous teeth…
Death had been scratchin’ an’ cowhands was catchin’
Their death from down underneath!
Them boots was burned, th’ curse was spurned…
Nobody died from them fangs agin…
There’s rattler’s that twist with a grin on their lips
Don’t buy used boots made from their skins!!

Byrd tells me when she was a kid in Idaho, she always knew someone who knew somebody who knew the guy it happened to…spooky.

Links

• If you want to read some more of Byrd Woodward’s fine “cowgirl” poetry…pay a visit to www.cowboypoetry.com, and then head right on over to www.wyomingcompanion.com.

© Byrd Woodward, 2002. All poems are copyright the artist and should not be reproduced without permission.

by Rod Nichols

A small dusty town down in Texas,
a boot shop I nearly passed by,
a new pair of boots in the window,
I thought I would give ’em a try.

While waitin’ the owner’s return soon
a bootblack had shown me a chair,
inquirin’ while I was just waitin’
could he give a shine to my pair.

With nuthin’ to do for the moment
I nodded and said,”Go ahead.
They’re old and they’re worn and the leather
is thin as the hair on my head.”

He laughed at my passin’ remarks then,
I don’t think that he disagreed,
he wiped off the dust of a lifetime
to see what them old boots would need.

He started by cleanin’ the leather,
some sort of soap I suppose,
a mixture that foamed to a lather
applied from the top to the toe.

Then after the cleanin’ was done with
another soft soap was applied,
them old leather uppers felt softer
and I felt new life from inside.

Then on went a new rub of polish,
not with a brush but by hand,
I’m tellin’ you now it was somethin’
the care and the touch of that man.

A cloth with a “Pop” for the shinin’,
a heel and sole dressin’ to close,
I sat there in awe for a moment
before he backed off and I rose.

The owner returned at that moment
regrettin’ that he had been gone,
he asked if I wanted some boots then,
“Yes sir. Just the ones I got on.”

A small dusty town down in Texas,
a boot shop I nearly passed by,
a lesson I learned from a bootblack
I’ll carry the rest of my life.

(A special note to Rod Nichols: Many, many thanks for all the poems you’ve given us over the years. There will always be room for one more.)

Links

• When ya visit Rod Nichol’s three pages-o-poetry over at www.cowboypoetry.com, ya get to read his “Lariat Laureate” award winning poem “Rooster”
• …and be sure not to miss readin’ Mr. Nichol’s special holiday poem dedicated to the memory of fellow bootnik poet, Bob E. Lewis.

© Rod Nichols, 2002. All poems are copyright the artist and should not be reproduced without permission.

by Byrd Woodward

I’d felt a hand grippin’ my shoulder as I was standin’ there,
‘Long side the grave of my daddy, head bent, pretending prayer…
I was thinkin’, “God, you son of a gun, I’ll look you up one day;
I’ll walk right up and ask you why you took both my folks away.’
When the preachin’ was over, I looked to see whose hand it was I’d felt…
All I could see was the buckle he wore to fasten up his belt.
He looked just like a mountain, the biggest man I’d ever seen…
Hat pushed back and grinnin’ at me, wearin’ boots and Levi jeans.

He was a friend of my daddy’s, a man I’d known most of my life…
He’d been at the service for Mama and always treated me nice.
It was Jim, the rodeo cowboy, famous both far and wide…
There’d been a time when he and my dad both wanted Ma for his bride.
They’d stayed best of friends even after one had beat out the other,
And wed the woman they both loved…the one who became my mother.
The bond continued strong and sure, while Jim made a name for himself,
My folks worked our little spread, makin’ a living…but not much else.

Mama died when I was six; now at eight, my dad was gone, too…
Aunt Mattie said she’d take me in and raise me along with her brood.
Jim trailed us home on horseback and when he climbed up on his bay,
The fancy new boots he was wearin’ just plumb took my breath away.
I’d never seen anything like them and they proved a distraction of sorts…
Jim said they were hand-crafted snakeskin, they gleamed like smoky quartz.
He stayed on, him and me workin’ cattle, there on my uncle’s ranch,
He helped me work out my sorrow, showin’ me I still had a chance.

Came time the rodeo season started up after winter’s break;
My friend said he was leaving, that he had a livin’ to make.
My guts tied in knots as we loaded his good roping horse,
He gripped my shoulder and said, “Son, I’ll be back, in due course.”
I needed to tell him I knew he’d stayed on just to help me…
That he was my best friend and I hoped he would forever be.
My tongue tangled up, words stuck in my throat; I fin’ly blurted to him,
‘What’re you gonna do with them boots when ya git through with ‘em, Jim?”

He grinned and said I could have them…”There’s lots of good in ‘em yet;
I’ll polish ‘em up ‘fore I ship ‘em…and I promise I won’t ferget”.
First he sent new boots he thought would fit….they were a bit too small…
I wore them ‘til they pinched so bad, I couldn’t get in them at all.
Whenever he could, he’d stop by and tell me I ‘sure was getting tall’;
He’d bring or send a new pair of boots when school took up in the fall.
Finally the day arrived when his snakeskin boots came in the mail…
They must have been a size fifteen, my feet rattled in them like hail…

But they were the ones I’d waited for since I was a little kid…
The same ones Jim was wearing when he came to do what he did.
The note that came in the box said, “See, son, I said that I would;
I’m not sure that these old things will ever do you much good.”
I stuffed the toes with holey socks and bandaided-up my heels…
And flapped around like someone who’d stepped on a banana peel.
Kids pointed and laughed when I showed up in boots too big for my feet…
Of the many fights I got into, there’s not one I’d care to repeat.

I wore those boots until they threatened to fall right off my feet…
I never did grow into them…and never admitted defeat.
Those boots belonged to my hero, the man I’d tried to become…
The cowboy who shaped me and taught me, the man who called me ‘son’.
The new boots kept coming in the mail, long after I’d grown and wed,
And a lot of them still are lined up right there at the foot of my bed.
My kids all started getting theirs when each of them turned three…
Just as steady as clock work they came, with an unspoken guarantee:

“This is the way I can tell you how much all of you mean to me…
Yer dad an’ me ain’t much good with words, I guess you’ll all agree.
Yer daddy wanted t’ know about love when he was just a boy…
He asked about some ol’ boots of mine…but that was just a decoy;
He wanted t’ know would I ferget about him after a while…
Would I recall his eyes were brown or he had a crooked smile…?
“What’re ya gonna do with yer boots… when you get through with ‘em, Jim?”
I’d send some along, filled up with love, no matter if they suited him.”

Aunt Mattie had told me when my dad died, he had left a will…
That all he’d had came to me and there weren’t any debts or bills.
Truth was he hadn’t left anything…. the ranch was buried in red…
But Mattie said everything was just fine and I was never to fret.
I learned later that Jim had paid for everything I’d ever owned,
The clothes I wore, the car I drove, everything, til I was grown….
I ate ‘Jim food’, went off to college on a ‘Jim Scholarship’…
Rode a ‘Jim Saddle’ and took him along on my first Mexican trip.

His shoulders stoop now, as he rocks, outside, there on the porch,
His hips stiffen up a little, after a day spent up on a horse…
There he is, that fine old man, with his silver-mounted saddles,
His championship buckles tell of the days he spent bull-dogging cattle.
The trophy that means the most to Jim and the man that he calls ‘son’,
Is the one mounted up there on the wall, the trophy that both of them won…
It represents their love and pride, it’s the one the whole family salutes
Every day as they’re walking by…..those worn-out old snakeskin boots.

I’d like to thank Ms. Byrd Woodward thinkin’ this “Book of Bootnik Poetry” was a good reason to write another poem.

Links

• Byrd Woodward may be new to this website, but she’s got a pile of poems sittin’ on her page at www.cowboypoetry.com, where she’s writin’ on the underslung heels of “bootnik poet” Rod Nichols. She’s been honored as a Runner-Up for the prestigous “Lariat Laureate Award”.

© Byrd Woodward, 2002. All poems are copyright the artist and should not be reproduced without permission.