County Pleasures No. 6: Cow Plops
Artist
The Alternative Press
Artist
Ann Mikolowski
(American, 1940-1999)
Datec. 1979
MediumLetterpress on cardstock
DimensionsPaper Size (folded): 6 7/16 × 6 in. (16.4 × 15.2 cm)
unfolded: 6 7/16 × 11 3/4 in. (16.4 × 29.8 cm)
ClassificationsPrint
Credit LineGift of Gary Eleinko, 2023
Object numberUAC7446.02
DescriptionLetterpress printed poem by B.S. Field, titled "Country Pleasures No. 6: Cow Plops"Letterpress printed illustration by Ann Mikolowski
Country Pleasures No. 6: Cow Plops
Had a college boy on the place for a while,
wasn't worth a lot,
half the time I needed a hand with getting in the hay or rounding
up stock, he couldn't make it 'cause he had a tennis
date or a baseball game or such,
but I only paid him when he worked, so he didn't cost me much,
and I never could resent him, 'cause some of the things he done
were kid of funny,
such as the time he complained to me that the cows were plopping
at him,
"at him,"was how he put it,
doing it on purpose,
and while I'll admit that a cow's not as stupid as a chicken,
still the maverick's rare that's got the wit to know that it
could jump my fences if it wanted to,
but this boy insisted it wasn't just one, it was a whole herd of
cattle getting at him,
using cow shit to do with whenever he'd get up of a morning
to do some running,
for excercise, he said-
though whenever I mentioned that my fence rows were full of
brush that needed cutting , he never seemed too eager
to get no exercise that way-
anyways he'd run across this pasture, down the hill, around a
pond and back up the hill to his shack again,
and the cows, he said,
all come and plopped at him when he did it,
so one day going by on my way to town,
saw him tricked out in this yeller suit, with long white
stripes down along the legs, and yeller canvas shoes,
climbing the gate to the pasture and then running down the
hill toward the pond,
so I pulled over to see what was going on,
and cows 'cause they figger that a human being means food,
come running to see what was being served,
trotted long behind him 'til he went on by the lower end of the
pond and came running around the other side,
right at 'em,
and then the cows got scared,
turned and run away,
and being scared, they loosened their bowels,
so the whole path where he was coming back up himm was covered
with cow plops,
and you should have seen that college boy running tip-toe in his
yeller sneakers between them piles of steaming shit,
trying to keep his fancy gym-shoes clean,
like to make a feller,
even one more inclined to sobriety than I am,
smile.
Published by The Alternative Press, Issue Number 9.
