Poem: And Roy Rogers Sang the Torah

And Roy Rogers Sang the Torah

North we go a-roaming from Wyoming to Montana

All upon a tankful of George Custer’s diesel gas

Jesus Christ is savior on the local reservation

But still we eat our snow peas on the Powder River Pass

Eastward in the gloaming from Wyoming to Mount Rushmore

Searching for the faces in the South Dakota night

Ripping down through Deadwood in the name of Rapid City

To see Abe Lincoln glowing in the cold arena light

The Seder means a shuffle low from Buffalo to Casper

Cruising for a synagogue and good unleavened bread

Jesus ain’t no savor in our private schoolhouse kitchen

And Jewish New York cowboys need a place to lay their heads

Gave us such a chilling there in Billings, South Montana

Fictive flames of Zion just beneath the bookstore glass

Driving back down ninety just as fast as wheels would take us

To watch them burning ridges in the deep Wyoming grass.

First published in The Redneck Review of Literature

(Pocatello, Idaho)

From the collection Great Showtunes of the American Stage  

Photo by MJV