by John Egenes
“Horses,” I mumbled, as I stepped into the tack room
And stopped to hang the bridle on the rack
I eased into the rocking chair located in the back room
and set about to rest my aching back
Now there’s horses, and there’s horses, and I knew this goin’ in
And now I know it even better, comin’ out
But when I allowed as how I’d take that little bay mare for a spin
It was the physics that I hadn’t thought about
I worked out of my pickup, goin’ all day, every day
I must’ve built a hundred miles of barbed wire fence
And just like every working cowboy, once I started back in May
I hadn’t had a chance to ride a pony since
Well, I finally got a day off and was free to take my leave
for a peaceful ride out in the autumn air
seemed like a good way to enjoy a short reprieve
And I wouldn’t have to stretch no fence wire there
So I grabbed a braided hackamore bridle for the ride
and headed down the old barn’s center aisle
to the tie stalls in the back, where the saddle stock were tied
I hadn’t been back there in quite a while
There wasn’t much light and it was growing darker still
As I slowly made my way back to that mare
The tie stall horses stomped and snorted, as horses often will
But it was so dark that I could not see them there
Just when I figured I had reached my destination
though in the dark I could not really tell
my boot caught on a cobblestone, which caused an aggravation,
And suddenly my whole world went to hell
I lost my gravitation inside that big dark vestibule
and I felt myself connect with something soft
When I touched that buckskin’s nether parts, he answered swift and cruel
And he decided I’d be better off aloft
The kick he gave me landed square upon my solar plexus
and it sent me airborne clear across the aisle
it felt like I was headed halfway back to Texas
Even in the dark I swear I saw him smile
But that was not the end, because the bridle that I held
caught on something, which caused a short detour
and it liked to jerk my arm out and sent me self propelled
toward a wheelbarrow filled with horse manure
Now, normally my landing on the mucker’s cart beneath
would be smooth, though the fragrance might have offended
but a twelve-tong manure fork that was missing several teeth
was lying in the cart when I descended
That handle slapped me several times up alongside my head
and those missing teeth began to bite my thighs
I remembered all the times my buckaroo colleagues said
that this cowboy kind of life was not so wise
Now, my backside fit that pitchfork like an egg fits in a spoon
but it did not last that way for very long
Because that wheelbarrow started rolling, I knew the end was coming soon
and I braced for it, but it turned out I was wrong
It rolled across the aisle like a shot out of a rifle
toward a big stout gelding in the center stall
where his size four shoe caught me just below the stifle
and once again I found myself above it all
Back across the aisle I wound up underfoot
right into my little bay mare’s line of fire
And she shifted her position, put all her weight upon my boot
The same one that had caused this to transpire
When I was finally liberated I stumbled down the aisle
counting up all my wounds and cuts and bruises
Now, there’s horses, and there’s horses, and I knew this all the while.
And for every one that wins, somebody loses
In the end it’s down to gravity, and to the long held notion
that anything that goes up must come down
And as Newton contemplated in his Third Law of Motion
A body will not stop until it hits the ground
