Cisco Kid Was a Friend of Mine

Poetry Workshop, Lesson 6/9/2025

Prompt: Write a poem about a favorite television program.

 

Title: Cisco Kid Was a Friend of Mine
By Mike Garofalo, 6/8/2024

 

Cisco Kid and Pancho
like the Lone Ranger and Tonto
like Hans Solo and Chewbacca,
helping the helpless,
fighting injustice faithfully
on horseback or in a Falcon spaceship,
showing up at the crime
always just on time
to save the downtrodden in a bind.

In 1953, growing up in ELA,
my neighborhood chums and I
watched the Cisco Kid on Saturday
on KTLA, channel 5.

Two cowboy vaqueros, Mexican caballeros,
at the edge of The Law, always moving on,
quasi-heroes like Robin Hood and his Merry Men,
admired by us in the
Bandini Barrio Hood.

They chased bad guy gringos,
corralled crooked cops,
and always came up on top.

Pancho rode Loco, Cisco rode Diablo,
loyal steeds,
carrying our anti-heroes
down dusty trails to do good deeds.
Horses, before Low Riders,
carried Southwestern Riders,
chewing grass not gas,
galloping bumbling Poncho
by cool Chico’s side.

One of the first TV series, in 1956,
in color on our tiny TV screens;
we saw our Mexican heroes shine.
Huge white sombrero hats to block the sun,
Chico in studded decorated ornate coats in black;
Pancho in checkered brown shirts and pants,
shiny leather holsters,
black pistoles,
dirty leather boots stomping in the sand.

Like Wild Bill and Jingles,
like Roy Rodgers and Brady on that
Nellie-Belle jeep;
Cisco and Pancho, especially Pancho
(Leo Carillo) made us laugh.
These jovial sidekicks
were essential to balance
the serious straight lead’s act.
Stereotypical Sidekick stumblers,
scatter-brained at times,
slow to get the drift,
loyal amigos in the mix.
They made us smile,
despite their mental limp.

We’d go on their adventures
glued to the boob tube,
until the final sendoff
by the two caballero dudes:

“Oh, Pancho.”
“Oh, Cisco, lets’ went.”

Poetry Workshop, Lesson 6/9/2025

Prompt: Write a poem about syntax.

 

Title: Syntactical-Semantical Diversions

By Mike Garofalo, 6/8/2024

 

Spanish can trick you:
adjectives after nouns,
pronouns and tenses
in complex verb endings
but consistent simple phonetic sounds.

 

He showed him trucks her
Ford red one favorited ran
Roads Saskatchewan on by slid
Syntax up messing not Rules
Ideas the get we somehow mind by

Object verb noun pronoun around twisted
blunders syntactical conflicted
like spellengs increct gve wey
tu menings implied toooo sey…
Yet, we figure it out in some way.

 

Double Negatives sometime don’t flounder
‘The pilot can’t find no place to land.’
‘I didn’t yell at nobody.’
Double Positives seldom work in English,
except maybe to express snide negatives
as in ‘Yeah. Right!’

 

Syntax facilitates semantics,
phonemes sing rhymes,
spelling correctly enhances meaning,
languages evolve over time.

 

I’m a hyper-texter by Trade,
sending words to other places of words,
to expand semantical contexts…
a new kind of syntax?

   The noun asked the adjective,
"Why do you speak of superficialities?"
    The adjective replied,
"Because your not very interesting
as a mere noun, unqualified."

 

    Streams of incoherence
Rivers of incomprehensibility
Oceans of meaninglessness—
    Occasional glimpses
of fools-gold in the poems.

 

Befuddled by
some poet's words
repeating rereads
increased the blur.
No pearl in the oyster.