Grow a Cowboy

GROW A COWBOY A poetry chapbook by Von Wise Cover art: Von Wise All rights reserved © Beyond Words Press, Berlin, Germany

First printing, June 2025 ISBN 978-3-948977-80-1

TABLE OF CONTENTS 01 03 05 06 07 08 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 19 21 22 23 24 25 28 29 31 33 34 35 36 38 40

Preface Genesis Transition Tame Earliest Memories Barrel Cactus Elegy for an Eye Anatomium Cowboy Bend Costellations Rituals Cowboy Song Seed Dreams The Book of Becoming list of rules, rites, and dogma Astral Plains Pebble Cave Desert Flower Campfire Bullet Seed Cowboy Homunculus Secret Knowledge Wandering Whistle Cymatics Prisons Image Northern Wind something more

Preface Potential, not-yet actual, encased in plastic, I look out at what might be the world.

Was I made to be unsealed?

Or is out-there a bigger version of in-here? I am John Brown, a sheriff, a cowboy king waiting to be born.

1

2

Genesis I am born at an apex, starlike, awash in darkness that exists only because I am here to receive it. The vast wild nothing stretches out in all directions, its emptiness hums a song I will hear for the rest of my life.

My trembling awareness begins to spread, reaching, grasping, illuminating the things it finds, capturing their images, enveloping many faces: a crow, a snake, a cactus, a canyon.

I am alone here. There is and isn’t a population all around me.

Water crashes, and its sound fills me with new ideas: expanse, deep, gather, release.

I feel myself growing into concepts, reaching out with increasing urgency.

I’m missing something.

I have guns, but no rope, a badge but no jail. I have water.

I am a desert waiting to fill with a volume in proportion to my own great open.

3

I’m waiting for a companion to contradict my solitude, a purpose to contradict my fate, for something to enter and make a home.

4

Transition One womb gives way to another. It’s wetter here, which is to say it’s different.

I never knew what it was to breathe until I felt bubbles percolating out of me.

What energy, what burning escapes into the wet.

I can begin to imagine, dimly, certain shapes in the distance.

They look like stars, an idea that only now occurs to me. Where is my horse?

Growing in another jar, probably. Like me, waiting for a turn.

5

Tame What could all of this space possibly mean? It is occupied.

It is unimaginably empty.

Is this what expectation looks like, a big empty room and a few boxes waiting to spill?

There is nothing tame about this world.

There is a looseness hidden inside it all.

And I feel so compact, pressed in, ready to spring outward at any moment.

It occurs to me that I’m not meant to tame this land, but to join it. To blow around, loose and rolling and boiling over. These two instincts pull at me, lift the hat off my head.

I can tell which way the wind blows.

Problem is, it’s always changing.

6

Earliest Memories I remember a mother.

Nothing of a father.

There is a length of rope tied into different shapes.

Jars filled with syrupy fruit line the walls of a cellar.

Peaches float like moons in that sweet, dark amber.

The clouds are animals breathed to life by the sun, glowing and pulling apart piece by piece.

I remember a sudden cold swallowing everything.

I remember being lifted into the night by hands I did not recognize.

Animals appeared as stars.

I was placed on the back of a huge horse which returned me to the ground. I remember being alone. But not anything after.

7

Barrel Cactus In this ocean of prairie, God curves around the bends.

The shadow wrapping a barrel cactus, thorns flowering everywhere, distorted face plain as midnight.

8

9

Elegy for an Eye blindness has no color / a moonless midnight and all of its opal light simultaneously / the sun the moment you look away / not blackness just less vision

10

Anatomium Cowboy

11

Bend When I reach out to poke at the edge of the world, my hand just keeps on going, bends back around as if encased in nothing, as if these plains were just a bullet or a doughnut wrapping around itself, as if they were a saddle, a jar bending beams of light into a halo or a ring of fire.

How does one escape confinement?

I shoot my gun into the sky, into the sea, but it hits nothing, no distant plink signifying boundary. The shot disappears far off into the horizon if it doesn’t just come right back at me.

12

Constellations The Cow modest grazer, gentle hulking form, long-since settled, overlaps The Bull, pillar of society The Snake its four stars slither along a milky river, open-secret venom, quick to frighten, deadly smart The Steeple tipped by a northern star, pierces the heavens, compass orienting midnight rituals The Crow sits opposite The Snake, opportunistic, capable, also known as The Archer, idolized in times of famine The Horse the traveler, the expedient, the messenger, symbol of nomads and immigrants, believed to deliver dreams and prayers, link between heaven and earth

13

Rituals I have heard tell of a nearby faction which operates in the dead of night with utmost secrecy.

They are a tiny cactus cult who worship the spines and the water protected within.

They meet on the night following a full moon, pricking themselves and drawing strange shapes on the cacti and in the sand just as the moon begins to wane.

They meet again a night after the slimmest crescent to suck on aloe leaves as the moon swells its empty stomach, eating the night and its darkness.

I have thought about reaching out, trying to contact them.

Something in their rituals speaks to me: The wetness and dryness, the shrinking and growing.

Maybe there’s a home for me apart from my branded duality, some way to escape this destiny marinating all around me.

14

15

Seed What is a seed?

Is it counted among the various things that exist, fully formed, or is it something waiting, yet to become?

Is it in-and-of-itself or insufficient alone?

The small wren perched on a cactus cares little for the flowers that bloom.

Yet what is the seed it eats if not a flower-in-the-making?

The eggs it nestles in a saguaro a precious meal to a wandering whipsnake.

I ride the plains unsure whether I’m a man with a destination or simply on the move.

What, if anything, am I supposed to become?

Is something waiting at the end of this changing, or am I already everything I will be, and looking back I’ll see a man riding his horse and nothing else?

16

17

Dreams I had a dream in which I floated warm and alone inside of a jar.

The light refracted gently on its curve, magnifying the world all around me. I felt my body stretching, pulling away from itself, my features tearing in the water.

I startled awake in the middle of the night, wondering at the strangeness of my dream. But when I fell asleep once more, there I was, submerged.

I awoke with the noontime sun burning overhead no longer knowing whether I am a cowboy who’d dreamt of floating in water, or if I’m in that jar now, dreaming myself a cowboy.

18

The Book of Becoming list of rules, rites, and dogma 1. Always and Never are the same 2. There is no life without heat 3. A hat 4. If there is a moon, there are people living on it 5. a) gather your things b) take them to the cave c) leave them there 6. In every cactus is the story of every other cactus 7. The sun is hot 8. Forget yourself. Think of the other self 9. The other self is you too. Don’t forget that 10. The sun is too hot 11. If you can weave, then weave 12. d) return for them, but leave something behind 13. The moon is your friend. Maybe your only friend 14. Never look twice at a tooth-cactus 15. It’s always better when you can sing

19

16. If you can help it, never stop singing 17. A shootout will end your life 18. You can be forgiven, but only if you forgive yourself 19. A shootout is no way to die 20. Where is your horse?

20

Astral Plains When there is nothing but nothing in all directions, you can sometimes slip into an other-world.

The horizon wobbles like a sound seen but not heard.

The ground becomes soft, your hat feels as if it lifts straight off your head.

It’s unclear whether you’re leaving your body or sinking deeper into your own hallucination.

Sounds come from all directions, scattered grasses like stars at your feet.

You notice them for the first time since you set off.

The air becomes like water, its dryness complete, as if you are submerged, drowning in its embrace. You float, a compass surrounded by the magnetic pull of solitude.

You deteriorate into dust and wind, wondering Is this freedom?

21

22

Desert Flower There’s a game you can play with the cactus.

Take a needle, stick it in the sand. Take another needle, stick it in. Form a grid.

Trace lines, point to point, until you form a flower.

Marvel at it: despite the desert, a flower. Try to make another.

Try not to bleed on the spikes.

Despite your efforts, you will.

Pluck more needles if necessary.

Form a mandala. Let sand run through your fingers.

Use the red of your blood to color the mouth of a bloom.

Stick your hands into the hot sand. Stain the ground.

Let its heat close your wound.

Observe the bloody shapes that rise up.

Use those shapes to form new geometries. The cactus sheds its defenses as you pluck spikes.

Let that inspire you.

Trace another flower. This time allow the needles to stick into your fingers. Gather more and more sand. Drizzle it, grow whatever lands. Once you have something beautiful, admire it long enough for the wind to blow it away

23

Campfire I heard once the story of a woman who dug herself from the grave. Must’ve been mistaken for dead because there she was, deviled with dirt and breathing in the ripe air of a noontime sun. Problem was, she couldn’t remember who she’d been. Only knew that her legs could carry her and town was that-a-way. They all said she reminded them of a child who’d recently passed—poor thing. All said she should find herself a home and a man to fill it. Instead, she took up in a shanty outside of town and dug a rifle out of an over-turned wagon she happened across. She knew as well as walking how to keep its barrel greased. She’d shoot down the days with an eagle-eye and collect drops of the bleeding sun in a large wooden bowl. People thought her strange, but mostly they left her alone. Every once in a while, someone might mention the cactus she’d tamed, rooted in an urn at her front door, how its flowers blazed brighter than any they’d ever seen. No one ever thinks to think what it must’ve been like down there, left for dead as if you’re already rotted. No one ever talks about how long it must take to dig yourself out, to climb upwards on rungs of dirt, birthing yourself again through broken ground. It must be a helluva time to bring yourself back to life once the world has moved on, once it thinks you’re no more than dust. Hard to even imagine outside a story.

24

Bullet Seed There is a sky.

I can see it all above me, looking down.

It begins about an inch above the ground and goes up, up, up like the sea and whatever might be at the bottom.

If only I could swim to that surface, knock on its ceiling. Please, I’d say, tell me one thing: whatever is out there beyond all this down here, does it matter? I’d shoot open the lock if I could.

Something tells me escape just means starting over, a return to what I was.

Is that it? Is the core of me waiting to blossom outward and fold in the edges of my expanded frame?

Even if a seed can overtake the flower, petals still burst lovely, and seeds nourish birds.

25

My bullet is a seed, waiting to bloom right out of my gun.

26

27

Cowboy Homunculus Pickled everyman.

I am many things at once. In this jar and out on the range I blow this way and that. The tendrils of a future finger my one eye like some precious gem.

What smoke, what fire consumes this body.

The log of me ought to have been removed long ago. I am many men.

I am everything that surrounds me.

I drown in the psychic story of something I can’t see.

But I want to. Lord, how that might put this split and busted head at ease.

28

Secret Knowledge There is a process by which I’ve learned to animate small figures through ritual and intense focus.

In a field of wild corn, find an ear as close to the center as possible.

Once shucked, leave the husk to dry in the high sun.

Once the leaves are dried, submerge them in a bowl of water beneath the full moon, and in the following dawn begin weaving the soaked leaves into a doll. Give it legs, a head, a body containing a heart.

The heart must me small and round, a pebble, a bullet, a tooth could all work.

Soak the doll in that same bowl of moonlight.

For three days, concentrate on its life, imagine it moving, connect its purpose to your own.

Trace a circle on the ground. When ready place the newly-christened figure at the center.

Its limbs slowly twitch to life. It picks itself up, walks unsteadily at first, stumbles, turns its head. You aren’t sure what the doll sees.

At the edge of the circle, it discovers it cannot leave.

It might pace, slowly testing the perimeter.

It might sit for a long time. You wonder what its world is like. Is it aware of its circumstance?

29

Or does it see vast ranges? Mountains, hills, oceans of signs out of which to extract meaning and purpose.

Eventually you realize it might not live at all.

Perhaps, like a wind-up toy, it merely motions.

Maybe it sees nothing, feels nothing. Maybe the only life it lives is the one within your mind, birthed and deceased by your own ideas.

Maybe it’s merely a doll, nothing more, and the one trapped in the circle is you.

30

Wandering I’m sorry if there’s something I’m supposed to do.

I’m still here stuck as ever with an idea of duty bursting from my head.

My gun is out of reach.

The sun warms my limbs, and this makes me happy.

The moon cools wounds that sore me.

If I am supposed to have a horse, the opportunity

31

has eluded me.

A savior I am not.

A wanderer has more room than this.

I can grow.

But into what?

32

Whistle Loneliness is a hollow bird.

A tiny sparrow. It flies.

It sings. It is carried by the wind.

Blowing in beside you, you dare not touch it.

Let it be you think.

If disturbed it might crumble me right along with it. You sit next to it, whistle a song you’d heard in the breeze.

This wind comes now, lifts you off your seat, drags you away.

Goodbye, little bird you think. You don’t see it still caught in your shadow.

33

Cymatics Often while sitting alone I’ll become surrounded by a sound like the distant rushing of water.

It prickles all around me, snapping and popping in a high-pitched blankness.

In many ways, this noise is not unlike the syrupy thickness of silence, which also encases with a kind of blankness, one which is empty rather than full, made from dark instead of light.

Images spring to life in these fertile spans of nothing.

Total silence produces raw, hard creations, while the crashing water-sound swarms into shapes like a cloud of gnats or birds.

I don’t always understand what emerges, and sometimes it’s hard to look at.

A dripping knife stuck in a pear.

A horse with a gaping hole in its side.

Sometimes I’ll see a cactus covered in teeth or a woman pirouetting endlessly.

Who is that woman? I’ll wonder, until a sharp caw cuts through the vision and flaps away, leaving me alone once more, its sound ringing in my ears, breaking the silence and drowning out the rush.

34

Prisons There are prisons of brick and iron and prisons of the mind.

Every prison is a prison of the mind.

35

Image If I ever find my horse, what will she look like?

I see a big spot, open and inviting on her side, large eyes that call out: I am no mere beast. I am a part of you as much as you are part of this setting.

But I once saw myself as the shapely, handsome frontiersman.

I never imagined these twisting legs bent towards escape, not this broken wrist or splitting side, my hat blown off so slowly, dipping into the sky.

Perhaps my horse’s legs will spider like my own, joints all misplaced, reversing the already complicated angles of shin, thigh, ankle of a horse in motion.

When I try to trace her shape in the dust, these are the features I struggle with most.

But maybe I’ve had it right all along.

My supposed errors, those odd bends, are true, and the real mistake is the image in my mind.

36

If I ever find my horse, maybe she’ll look more like me than like a star, not soft and oily and far away, but tearing apart all over, all surface and trapped in a world, but feeling all the while like a dream.

37

Northern Wind Noon becomes midnight when the wind blows cold.

Dust gets kicked up, but its energy is different. Those boreal clouds form stranger shapes. The chill gets inside you, blows open a door in there. A bottle bounces on the floor, spills everywhere, its contents bleeding into the foundation.

A dust devil rises, dances around suggestively.

Your skin tightens all over and widens the lacerations covering your body.

Somewhere inside, a scab is picked open, a finger presses, presses, pushing with the same cold energy that surrounds you. Coagulating blood does not drip from the wound.

It is merely exposed to the icy air.

Remember this?

Remember this old dance?

The clouds look like a horse.

Is it your horse? It resembles shapes you’d dreamed.

38

It gallops in circles, whipping up gales.

It winds into the ground, throwing its shoulder at your feet.

Panting, the particles of it pick up, dissolve into a haze that mixes with yours.

You feel like you could cry when suddenly, the wind blows away into the horizon. You’re left alone, wondering about your horse.

Still growing, still changing, same as ever.

39

40

Note The poem "Dreams" is in reference to "The Butterfly Dream" of Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou, who questions arbitrary and imaginary dichotomies.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Inverted Syntax for publishing the concluding poem "something more" (originally published in a different form as "there is") to conclude their second issue as well and to Beyond Words for selecting this collection for their 2025 Poetry Chapbook Awards.

I am endlessly thankful for everyone at Florida International University's creative writing program where I first started working on this chapbook. I am especially grateful to my teachers Campbell McGrath, Denise Duhamel, and Richard Blanco for reading early drafts of these poems; to Julie Marie Wade for looking at the first draft of cowboy poems and saying yes and for being a guide in all things hybrid and beyond; to Terrance Hayes, Yona Harvey, Jim Daniels and especially Kevin A. González for getting me to Florida.

To the whole Miami crew, especially the leader of The Lost City of Islandia Jason Katz, Jordan Hill, Michael Sheriff, Eddie Krzeminski, Terin Weinberg, B.M. Owens, Yael Valencia Aldana, Jaden Gongaware, Rani Ruado, David Eileen, Lissa Batista, Madison Whatley, and Trey Rhone.

Thank you to Michael Garcia Juelle and to Camila Saavedra who will always be with me in poetry and prose; to Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello who let me put these pages together on her floor and still watches Godzilla movies over the phone; to

Jared A. Conti, my first cowboy poet; to Jack and Nick, who probably had everything to do with this; to Jacob who read them, too; to Rachel who came all the way to Philly; to Sara Mae and Alex Bruce who helped me finish the cover, among other things.

To John Brown who may or may not be who the toy is named for and whose courage and strong sense of justice is much needed.

Thank you to Bri Griffith, the first to grow a cowboy.

These poems are for Birdie, my horse, and for Abby, always.

Von Wise received his MFA for Creative Writing from Florida International University. He teaches English composition and creative writing in Philadelphia, where he lives. His and others' work can be found on his website vonwise.lol