The Horse Clinician
"Are you teaching him a lesson?" She asked, eager to please,
As I tried to keep from barfing, my head between my knees.
"You hung on like a windsock! It just tickled us to death!"
Is she serious? I'm drooling, I can't hardly catch my breath.
"When you leaned yourself up forward and kissed him 'tween the ears,
The whole class just went crazy! I guess you heard the cheers!"
That must how I broke my nose and split my upper lip,
But I guess it looked like kissing', "I just love your horsemanship!"
"The way you tame the savage beast, the techniques that you're usin'".
When my tailbone hit the cantle, I felt my sphincter loosen.
"You reckon you could show us how you did it once again?
Be nice to get some photos." What? To show my next of kin?
I guess there goes my living will. I'm a victim of the forces.
The way this looks, I might as well be shoein horses.
"It was really so impressive, the way you made him load
At full gallop,sittin' backwards, from a way on down the road".
So that's how I hit the trailer, I think I lost a pound of flesh.
Thank goodness it was rusty and my tetanus shot was fresh.
"Could you show us that maneuver where you circled like a fan
With nothin' but your buckle touchin',
Holdin' out both your hands?"
Now where'd I put my Dramamine?
It was here the other day,
I'm feelin' kinda woozy,
Did Brannaman start out this way?
I thought it would be easy to be a horse clinician.
Now it's gonna take a miracle to explain this exhibition.
How I really was in full control, above the rising panic,
Though I looked like the propeller on the back of the Titanic!
"It's what I call the daisy," I modestly explained.
"It takes a master trainer to achieve what I've attained."
"You should concentrate on basics, skip the fancy stuff," I warned.
Besides, I thought, any gunsel can accidentally hook his buckle on the horn!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Posted: May 2020
About this poem:
Last Fall my beloved and I went to go watch our neighbor who trains horses, and he recounted to us his feelings on the whole thing. This is a telling of his experience.
Comments (3)
entertaining write....