Guitar Poems
Saturday At The Canal
by Gary Soto
I was hoping to be happy by seventeen.
School was a sharp check mark in the roll book,
An obnoxious tuba playing at noon because our team
Was going to win at night. The teachers were
Too close to dying to understand. The hallways
Stank of poor grades and unwashed hair. Thus,
A friend and I sat watching the water on Saturday,
Neither of us talking much, just warming ourselves
By hurling large rocks at the dusty ground
And feeling awful because San Francisco was a postcard
......
The Dude Ranch Cowboy
by Kenneth T. Schofield
I used to be a cowboy, but quite a while ago
I quit my job and now boy, I'm makin' twice the dough
I'm a dude ranch cowboy
Every saturday is rodeo, we ride and rope and shoot
I guess we put on quite a show, the way the people hoot
The bulls and broncos that we top, are trained to give a show
Why I don't get an honest job, I guess I'll never know.
I've learned to build a smoke, one handed from the sack
Just like the movie cowpoke, from a buckin' broncos back
I'm a dude ranch cowboy
......
I Need It
by Bobby Marbles Mobley
I need a couple of dollars or so
To take my girl to the picture show
I need a Rolls Royce painted brown
My girlfriend can use it to drive downtown
I need a mink coat made of fashionable fur
So on her birthday I can give it to her
I need it! I need it! I need it!
I need a Harley Davidson and boots of leather
And a leather jacket for all kinds of weather
......
The Magic Music Box
by Nita S. Balma
That music box on Grandpa's wall
Was magic to my eyes
I loved to hold and try to play
that guitar, twice my size
One day, I thought of nothing else
So, when the school bell rang
I was off to Grandpa's house
To strum those strings again
......
Guitar is my Witness
by Jesher Samayla
Sitting on the bench,
Holding a Guitar,
Singing my song,
With my spirit and soul.
Holding curved body,
Taking some pluck,
Hitting the notes,
In a special way.
......
Guitar is my Witness
by Jesher Samayla
Sitting on the bench,
Holding a Guitar,
Singing my song,
With my spirit and soul.
Holding curved body,
Taking some pluck,
Hitting the notes,
In a special way.
......
Salut Au Monde
by Walt Whitman
O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next!
Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.
What widens within you, Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?
What climes? what persons and lands are here?
Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?
Who are the girls? who are the married women?
......
Accordion
by Robert William Service
Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on the floor . . .
Alas! your dancing days are nearly done.
I've played you from the palm-belt to the suburbs of the Pole;
......
Ignorance
by Robert William Service
Oh happy he who cannot see
With scientific eyes;
Who does not know how flowers grow,
And is not planet wise;
Content to find with simple mind
Joys as they are:
To whom a rose is just a rose,
A star--a star.
It is not good, I deem, to brood
......
Seville
by Robert William Service
My Pa and Ma their honeymoon
Passed in an Andulasian June,
And though produced in Drury Lane,
I must have been conceived in Spain.
Now having lapsed from fair estate,
A coster's is my sorry fate;
Yet on my barrow lo! I wheel
The golden harvest of Saville.
"Sweet Spanish oranges!" I cry.
......
