CW: The Origins of a Cowboy + The Rodeo of Life.

In October, multiple writing contests were hosted and I managed to participate in a couple of them. Unfortunately, neither one of those pieces was picked as a winner, but I still wanted to share these with you to see what you thought.

The first one is a 99-word flash fiction piece, which I felt somewhat comfortable with. The second, 99-syllable poem was much trickier. Please let me know your thoughts.

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“The Origins of a Cowboy”

“Mommy, where do cowboys come from?”

Barb turned around and smiled. She was aware of Tommy’s bedtime trickery but took the bait anyway.

Sitting back down, she told her son about the first-ever criminal who kept stealing apples. No one was fast enough to catch him. Then, one day, in a billow of smoke, a man with a lasso in hand descended on a horse from the clouds. He chased the thief all through the Arizona desert but finally caught him thanks to his rope and the speedy stallion.

“But what came first – a cowboy or his hat?”

***

“Write an original folk tale or fable in 99 words.”
+
“Make it ‘Western’ themed.”
– prompts used for this CW piece.
[Source: Rodeo1]

***

“The Rodeo of Life”

And I jump on the horse
to gallop through the
wide meadows of absolute grief and sadness.
The blood on my lips sweet.
Winds envelop me.

“Laugh! Don’t cry,” they all say.
Voices rattle in
the head of mine, leading deeper down the hole.
All I need is quiet.
Dusk envelops me.

Glad I am when I run
and don’t think at all.
Day in and day out we face the foul music.
Would you run away with
me? Envelop me.

***

“Write three stanzas of five lines, each with a syllable count of 6/5/11/6/5, totaling 99 syllables, no more—no less.”
+
“Include five (consecutive) words taken from the found-poem by Cowboy Poet, Charles Badger Clark, called ‘The Springtime Plains.‘”
(Line 1 starts with word 1/ Line 2 ends with word 2/ Line 3 starts with word 3/ Line 4 ends with word 4/ Line 5 starts with word 5)
Since I am an overachiever,

I chose 3 different 5-word long groups (each for different stanza)
(I)And the wide, sweet winds
(II)laugh in the quiet dusk
(III)glad all day with me

– prompts used for this CW piece.
[Source: Rodeo2]

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P.S. As always, you are more than welcome to use this prompt to inspire your post. If you decide to write something, be sure to pingback to this post so that I can get an alert and check out your piece. (A post on how to do pingbacks can be found here.) If pingbacks are not your thing, feel free to simply leave a link to your piece in the comment section below. The more, the merrier!

Stay golden,

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Stay golden,

***

Did you enjoy reading this post?
Hit LIKE.
Have some thoughts on the topic?
Share in the COMMENTS.
Do you regularly enjoy my blog?
Be sure to FOLLOW.
Are my posts getting lost in your busy Reader?
Try SUBSCRIBING.
Want to get to know me better?
Check me out on TWITTER @SamGoldieKirk.