Ode To A Ken Kesey Cowboy
Words & Music by Jamey Bilyeu (A cowboy blues)
Scarecrow carcass in the flies and the cowflop,
Scoured of his meaness like scum off the bar slop,
An unsavory mudball of a dimestore kill,
Lean & mean & often seen green around the gills.
Soft-poached kid gang of hard-boiled eggs,
Staggered down and helped him up on his bull frog legs.
“Give me the rail & I do believe I’ll take the race.
If’n I steers clear of this wicked wind in my face.”
Them punkin’ rollin’ brush poppers ‘sittin’ in the old saloon
A surgin’ sea of sin seekers sippin’ in the afternoon.
Then a dixie dandy crawfishin’ casts him out a line,
To a brassy lil’ beauty barefooted as a porcupine.
Through the tall clover, to the tumble down out back
The Eagle called him away, but the Coyote called him back.
Jes’ like the Craven Raven Moth to the candle flame,
And he still had the Devil’s horse to try to tame.
Chorus:
Witness the grace no rags could conceal,
The shell of the gray dawn morning had a funeral feel,
Like shadows into smoke… ghosts swimming in a dream,
Driftin’ down on a dusty sunbeam.
A red ribbon Sun crosses the face of the Moon,
Under a cast iron Sky, on the edge of a spoon.
She had long leafy lashes like mascara on a witch,
When she flat left him…flat broke…flat lyin’ in a ditch.
Driftin’ back in time like a long lost bet
Galloping down a century of lost sunsets
He rode like an Eagle on the Coyote Wind
With his old chaps a flappin’ and his rawhide grin.
Cacklin’ thru’ his whiskers Billy Goat did bleat.
Whistlin’ down the rails of his memory,
To another time, another train of thought.
Can’t you jes’ hear ‘dem old bones talk?
Chorus