I am blessed with having some very talented friends out here in the Big Bend country of far West Texas. One of these is Joel Nelson… a cowboy, a horseman, a rancher, and one of the best cowboy poets that is working today. Joel has served his country, is a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment, and is not afraid to say what he thinks. Joel’s poem, “CLINGING”, speaks to me and I hope it will do the same for you. His poem is published here with his permission.

 

Don’t look at me as all that tame

Don’t label me as wild

I am convinced the Lord has known my name

Since I was just a child

 

I never look for trouble

Yet I’m not inclined to run

And I’ll firmly stand here clinging

To my Bible and my gun

 

I wore the Screaming Eagle

When my country felt the need

And our Eagle’s set to strike you

When you make our country bleed

 

Our Old Glory will be waving

At the rise of every sun

Just as long as we don’t sleep

Without our Bible and our gun

 

The Constitution plainly states

Our rights shan’t be infringed

Yet the engine of democracy

Has slowly come unhinged

 

The Republic is in peril

And something’s come undone

Complacency is causing

Our cocoon to come unspun

 

There are tremors in the nation

All along the line of fault

They are growing more incessant

Seems they seldom ever halt

 

And the fault line runs through chambers

Where our legislators stand

Amplified by drum rolls signalled

By the leaders of the band.

 

What is that noxious odor

What is that awful taste

The stacks above our Capitol

Are spewing toxic waste

 

Some robes worn in our highest court

Have never warmed a bench

Something tells me the Founding Fathers

Might be sickened by the stench

 

From the party up in Boston

And the shot heard ’round the world

We became the global envy

Under stars and stripes unfurled

 

Now the shot heard ’round the world’s

Become the shout heard on the mall

Voicing words dipped from the ink wells

Filled in Independence Hall

 

And the quills that penned the words

Were not from feathers of the dove

And the men who built our framework

Took their blueprint from above

 

These men knew well that what they did

Could never have been done

Had they not placed their reliance

On their Bible and their gun

 

Joel Nelson
Brewster County, Texas