POEMS (and some MUSIC) by ME  

I DON'T LIKE POETRY! Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, I must qualify it with the fact that I write poems. I found it a challenging and cathartic process of self discovery and inner peace -- and if you believe that, then you need therapy just as I do.

One of my favorite Dagwood and Blondie comic strips was when Blondie had her poetry club over to their house for a meeting and the president of the poetry club, a rather stoic and stodgy looking woman, asked Dagwood what his favorite poem was. He replied, "I've always been fond of 'Hickory, Dickory Dock."

Being uneducated in the ways of good poetry, I feel poems should have some sort of rythme to them, and if they don't, they should be called something else. If a poem doesn't rhyme, then there is a fine line between it and prose -- a line I often fail to recognize. I figure if something is written in short lines of text, sounds profound but leaves much to the imagination, then it must be good poetry.

Back in my early days of undergraduate school I took a course in creative writing. We wrote nothing the entire course. All we did was sit around and discuss the creative writings of famous people -- at least I was told they were famous. At the time, I'd never heard of most of them. One day I had to read a passage from a famous writer. A discusson ensued as to what the author meant.I put forth the opinion that, if it were good writing, there would be no question as to what the author meant. I failed that course.

So we can rule out any of the following poems having obvious meanings. Most of them rhyme, but I have dabbled in those that don't. Most are poems about experiences I've had in Colorado working as a wrangler at a guest ranch. I read a few of them to the guests each week and they like them, so perhaps... or not. They sound better if I read them to you than if you read them, so come to Aspen Canyon Ranch for a week. Then you will also be able to hear me play the washtub base. In fact you can hear it (almost) on the music link below.