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From the Winter/Spring 2001 issue of Cobblestones:

Baxter Black is the self-described poet laureate for NPR and a former large-animal veterinarian.  His short stories and poetry can be heard on NPR and are printed in a dozen books.  In Cactus Tracks & Cowboy Philosophy,  he notes that some works started as others and were "filter(ed) through my metaphors, petit fours, and two-by-fours, one might say been fictionalized, or as we say at my house, Baxterized."

With that admitted plagiarism in hand, I'll say that the following poem began as "Shoein' Pigeye" in that same book.  Let's say that it was filtered again just to make it more familiar.

--Bob Gray - FRMS Board Member


SHOEIN' BUBBA
by Bob Gray with a nod to Baxter Black

"Just count me out," said Armstrong as he lay there in the dirt,
A bulgin' knot behind his ear, a hoofprint on his shirt.
"I'll handle this, " said Russell, "You jus' git on out the way,
This sorry bag of buzzard bait has met his match today."

The horse weren't much to look at, just the kind the Sarge'd buy,
But you knew that he was trouble when you looked him in the eye.
It was small and mean and glittered, as deep as Jacob's well,
Like looking down the smokestack of the furnace room in Hell.

Russell grabbed a set of nippers and bent to grab a hoof.
When he woke up his shoein' chaps were danglin' from the roof.
His shirttail hung in tatters and his watch had come unwound.
The nipper's orbit finally peaked, they clattered to the ground.

"Go get a twitch," said Russell, "I'm about to clean his clock."
He looped a rope round Bubba's neck and fished it past the hock.
Then pulled back on the sideline to instill a little fear,
Then Bubba bit a good-sized chunk from Russell's offside ear.

Bubba bolted down the breezeway and tried to navigate,
While draggin' Armstrong close behind like alligator bait.
Russell tried to stop this trollin' with a loop around the head,
And it might'a worked if Russell'd only roped the horse instead.

But, of course, he caught poor Armstrong, who left a funny track,
Like roadkill on the pavement when Russell jerked the slack.
By now both men were testy and tired of this travail,
They figgered they'd be done by now but they'd not drove a nail.

"Go git the Sarge's  dually, Bob, we'll cinch him to a post."
They got the old boy necked up tight, and set to work . . . . almost,
'Cause the halter broke and Bubba walked the length of Armstrong's back.
Then they rolled beneath the axle like two lovers in the sack.

Armstrong heard the sound of gunfire like a thousand amplifiers,
"I've got the sucker pinned down, Bob, I shot out all the tires!"
It was dark when Russell finally stood and laid his hammer down.
A gross of crooked horseshoe nails lay scattered on the ground.

The place looked like a cross between the tomb of Gen'ral Grant
And a Puppy Chow explosion at the Alpo dog food plant!
Armstrong couldn't move his elbow, but they'd finally won the tussle.
He said, "We done a good day's work" to what was left of Russell.

Russell kicked amoungst the wreckage
and stooped to rub his knee.
"What say we wait till morning, Bob,
to put on the other three?"