Day One by Dennis Lange

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It was the first day and the sun arose
Like all the other days preceding this –
This one that some would think on at the close
As they looked back with rue to reminisce. 

The morn, if seasonal, was cool or cold.
There was no sudden blaze, no fiery heat.
At dawn, there was no final bell that tolled,
Yet curtain closed on any safe retreat. 

It was a day like all the days before,
The first day of the siege of Alamo.
None knew they only had a dozen more
None sees a blizzard in one flake of snow. 

There is a normal day that is the last
Without a signal that its fading kind
Exists no longer save the written past –
Upon the parchment of the fragile mind.

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On Feb.23, 1836, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his men
arrived in San Antonio and the siege began at the Alamo.

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The photo is mine.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

 

 

 

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I Ate My Way Through Texas – a Texas tall tale by Dennis Lange

I ate my way through Texas
   One Christmas season past.
All it took was an appetite,
   And driving hard and fast. 

I breakfasted in Corpus;
   Ate lunch in San Antone;
Had peachy cream in Fredericksburg,
   The biggest ice cream cone. 

I darted up to Llano,
   And ate some barbeque.
I still felt rather perky
   As I drank some Mountain Dew. 

I snacked a bit in Abilene;
   In Snyder, I ate steak.
I passed on a second piece of pie –
   ‘Twas all that I could take. 

In Post, I drove through the Dairy Queen,
   Had a burger and some fries.
I began to see a line of food
   Rise in me to my eyes. 

In Amarillo, I chug-a-lugged
   Three liters of some coke.
I think it was the salty fries
   That made me a thirsty bloke. 

The Oklahoma border was
   Then not too far away.
And I was glad, for my stomach had had
   A fairly busy day. 

My car was tired; I’d driven far –
   Nigh seven hundred miles.
But I found a place, bought a root beer float
   And I was full of smiles. 

I had them fix a gallon
   Which I drank till Perryton.
And I paused to rest, with a sudden pain –
   Well… – there was more than one. 

I stood outside my resting car;
   Then faced toward Lubbock – south.
And all of a sudden I let a belch
   That blew off half my mouth. 

And I watched in awe at the wind I saw
   That blew down ‘cross the plain
And kicked up the dust and the tumbleweeds
   Worse than a hurricane. 

They said it turned the day to night
   The dust storm was so bad.
And the boom of the belch was an atom bomb
   (They thought, from Stalingrad). 

They had it rough, but the belch was enough
    To change me and my mood
I hit the border of Oklahoma
    In search of a little food.

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The route in the poem is from the Texas Gulf Coast
north through the Panhandle of Texas to the Panhandle
of Oklahoma, and is about 700 miles.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2014.

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