RESPONSE TO SCOT YOUNG'S ALL AROUND COWBOY

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As I tell folks repeatedly, despite their insistence, I don’t do reviews, but I do respond in writing at times to works that move me. You’d be hard pressed not to be moved by Scot Young's All Around Cowboy…well, at least I’d have been hard pressed. Fortunately, I don’t fight the feeling.

I can’t write like Scot, but I gave it my best shot to at least offer a tiny tribute to his style. I hope it seems like I got it Scot.

Here’s what wriggled out in the aftermath of All Around Cowboy:

the dark
was creeping round the curtain

i set all around cowboy down
beside me
on the billowy down
like the golden goose
with a broken wing
eyes closed

cradling the vastness
behind lids

i lay there
eyes shut
mind open
letting scots breezes blow
thru the gray matter 

i’ve got left
thru the
how do you congeal this
into butter

i ain’t that smooth

i still don't know if the gurgling
was food related
or because I'd chugged the pages
like that first shot of jack
after coming in
from a sandstorm
but the rumble filled 

the big little space

talk about lonesome
all around cowboy does plenty a that

and in this cell sized space of cozy
i knew hank willie and johnny
didn't have nothin on me
when it came to da blues
even if I can't play a lick
and my singing
ain't for shit

our bones might remember
what our brains leak out
like a
done sat too long in the weather
water barrel
or distant revving of a rusty truck
that wouldn't pull

talk to me scot
of boys and girls 

on moonlit hills
still green enough 

    for expectations
ripe enough 

    for doubts
    and dashed hopes
    and friends
buried in redneck dirt

talk to me
of those friends 

gone by
who left their mark
some twiggy and fragile
some like oak
stout

marks left
between the eyes
and ribs
popcorn memories
with hard kernels
others melting
even before chewing
the thick mud 

of nostalgia
you can wade through
crystal stream like
in spring

but even crystal streams hide
jagged rocks that cut
your soul to ribbons
streaming salt stain tracks
trapped in ridges
not even dreamt of
when nostalgia was still

a word
you had to look up

talk to me
of retrospectives
of disguised loves
tripping over pain
we try to hurdle
in bottles and cans
with banter and harsh
wtfs

but then
cowboys don’t speak of love
except in the whistling
of a hank williams tune
offkey
after hitting a rusty can
at ten paces
with a brown stream

so many lost
but found 

in these pages
so many found
when lost 

in thought

stetsons and chevys
honky tonks and blues
loose women
with tight asses
but mostly
mom and dad
and
the long sad lonesome

heard tell you gotta
dance with the one
that brung ya

Scot’s bio from All Around Cowboy:

“Scot Young lives with the woman of his dreams on a ridge top farm in the Missouri Ozarks. He is widely published online and in numerous print anthologies and chapbooks. His first chap Brautigan Meets Bukowski is out of print with a copy residing in the Brautigan Library. He also co-authored with John Dorsey Head On. He is the editor of the Rusty Truck and Deuce Coupe. He and his wife Rosanna are publishers at Rusty Truck Press."

Scot is also responsible for The RustyTyper- a monthly online flash fiction publication that is the “little brother of the Rusty Truck, second cousin to the Deuce Coupe.”

Thanks for stopping by...T. A.