Rodeo Circuit

Chute opens
Storm of dust
Storm of slobber
Adolescent rides the
Hurricane tornado
Raw hormone focus
And instinct of the herd

Cheers behind the fence
Knows the rest are having fun
And understand 
Except the secret self
Applauding with the peers

Knows life was invented
By a girl in tight sweater
Wearing, yes, a football letter
(Yes, that rhymes)

(Classring
Nosering
Football letter
Or Tattoo)

Or a boy with ice blue eyes
So deep and knowing
Football star or player
In a plastic box of pictures
Scorns the parent
Teacher preacher
Knows that wisdom
And perception
Must be found
In shared perception
Of the young;
In this the final 
Most climactic phase
Of life

Knows that Sacred Text
That God
Is located in the grandstand
A needle
Applause meter
In the grandstand
 
Heaves the saddle
To the shoulder
Hitches ride
And adolescent dies.
 
And arrives
As the bronc rider.

From Poems of the New Old West
Copyright 2002, Jack Purcell