5:15 am: Wake up with the sun.
5:16 am: Begin drinking.
5:20 am: Brew cowboy coffee, extra strong. Joke to hired man that “I’ve got a case of the zactlies.” Even though you’ve told this joke every morning since he started working here, he’ll still ask, “What’s that?” Reply: “It’s when you wake up, and your mouth tastes ‘zactly like your ass.”
5:25 am: Bowel movement.
5:30 am: Eggs.
5:45 am: Some kind of cowhand work.
11:00 am: Corn whiskey, neat.
11:06 am: Throw empty bottle at Cookie’s head; cuss him out for falling asleep before making lunch.
11:07 am: Write first poem of the day, “Cookie is a good-for-nothing layabout.” His sloth is emblematic of America’s long-term decline from greatness, for which this poem is the obvious antidote.
11:45 am: Take call from lawyer re: next week’s custody hearing.
11:52 am: Send embittered text messages to estranged wife using busted-ass, circa-2006 Nokia T9 phone.
12:35 pm: Finish texting.
12:36 pm: Write second poem of the day, “Cookie, I deserve better.”
12:53 pm: Truck.
1:05 pm: Eat the lunch that Cookie finally finished preparing. Constantly refer to it as “dinner,” not as an insult to Cookie’s tardiness, but rather because “dinner” is a regionalism that means “lunch.”
1:30 pm: Third poem of day, “Cookie, you done good.”
1:45 pm: Lament lost way of life, drink to excess.
2:35 pm: Drunk drive to post office.
3:15 pm: Black out in McDonald’s parking lot.
5:00 pm: Don’t know.
7:00 pm: Don’t know.
10:00 pm: Don’t know.
Bonus cowboy poem!
“Windmills”
I remember Dad’s windmills.
And Grand-dad’s windmills.
They looked like windmills should.
Standing proud, like oil wells
with oscillating fan hats.
Not like today.
The windmills are too damn tall!
Global warming is a myth!
What ever happened to our way of life?
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