Dedicated To Alaska

The home of the tin can and dog,
A waste of snow, ice, and moss.
The graveyard of ambitions,
The by-word for hell,
The home of the famed double cross.
Men come here for gold,
Ambitious for wealth
They stick--for they can't get away,
They dig, drink, and die,
And then go to hell,
To pay for their last sucker play--

ALASKA

Pat O'Cotter

No biography available

Pat O'Cotter

That 30 U.S. On The Wall

Pat O'Cotter, Simple Poetry

And Still I Like Alaska

Pat O'Cotter, Simple Poetry

Us For Sam

Pat O'Cotter, Simple Poetry

Flotsam

Pat O'Cotter, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

And Still I Like Alaska

I've tramped across her endless miles of tundra,
I've rafted all her rapid flowing streams,
    She's kept me on the hummer,
    I've fought mosquits in summer
And "siwashed" neath Aurora's wintry beams,
    And still, I like Alaska.

I went a winter once on pay streak bacon,
I've gone a year on nothing much but beans,
    I've squandered all my time checks,
    The kind they give us roughnecks,
And haven't got a dollar in my jeans,
    And still, I like Alaska.

I got a stake one time and wandered Outside,
And I'm telling you I surely put on "dog,"
    But they got in between me and my poke
    They sure did clean me
And I hit for Dixon's Entrance, on the "hog,"
    And still, I like Alaska.

I don't suppose a man will live to beat it...

Pat O'Cotter

The Throwback

He was born far east of the Rockies
    Of a pet in society's van;
A wine-soaked daughter of pleasure
    Bred back and threw a man;
A man-child who grew up a stranger,
    Who never could learn the way
Of a people who gauge their pleasure
    On a line with the price they pay.

Just a shred of an education--
    A few years of college life,
A course in the card and wine room,
    A year with a chorus-girl wife,
Then disgust with a life unnatural
    Spurred on with the curse of the go,
He quitted that life forever
    For the land of the gold and snow.

The Lure of the Land had gripped him,
    The Land where you die if you fail;
The Land of the fabled fortunes,
    The Land of the endless trail.
The Land of the lonely silence,

Pat O'Cotter

(A Steal from Kipling)

If you can hit the trail in zero weather
    And laugh at frozen hand, or foot or face;
If you can eat your dogs, and still keep moving
    And beat the rest, and hold the stampede's pace;
If you can stake and dig alone, unaided
    And hold your ground, if needs be with a gun
And find the gold and have some lawyer steal it,
    And lose, and start again, and call it fun.

If you can go a year on mouldy bacon
    And fight the scurvy off with bayo beans;
If you can jump your socks and do your washing
    And smile the while you patch your threadbare jeans;
If you can laugh when sordid hunger mocks you
    And smile while passing strangers eat your grub;
If you can boost when everybody knocks you
    And know him wrong w...

Pat O'Cotter

Why

Why is it Alaskans all come back
    When they've quit this land for good?
Why is it that no man stays away
    When he's sworn to his friends he would?
Where lies the grip this country hath
    All tangled around the heart
That takes a grip that can never slip
    And can never be torn apart?

Is it the lure of the summer sunshine
    That goes to the head like wine?
Is it the lure of the far flung meadows
    Of the shadowy scented pine?
Is it the lure of going where none have gone
    Of just being alone in the wild?
Is it the lure of the ancient glaciers
    That were old when Christ was a child?

They come here wild, athirst for gold
    They would win and run away,
They lose the stake they brought along
    And then they have to ...

Pat O'Cotter

The Malamute

When the stars from the skies have fallen
    And the smoke of the world's cleared away;
When Saint Peter marks "30" in Life's Book
    And we meet there on Judgment Day;
When our trials and troubles are ended
    And we're wise to the best and the worst;
When the time has arrived that the wise ones
    Have told us the last shall be first;

When the men who've made good are rewarded
    And the losers are turned loose in Hell;
That's the time that a lot will be learning
    The true reason and cause that they fell.
And I wonder when Peter gets busy
    As he works out the tenement plan,
And when Heaven's thrown free for location
    Will he confine the locations to man?

If he does, my claim's open for jumping
    For I can't figure Heaven comp...

Pat O'Cotter

A Woman, A Dog, And A Walnut Tree

This Land is the orphan kiddie
    Of the group with their stars in the Flag,
And it's looked on Outside as an alien,
    Where its treatment makes honest men gag.
It's treated the same as the harlot
    Who barters her body for pelf
And carries it home to her master
    And is told to look after herself.

Of course we're an orphan, adopted
    When cast off by the great Russian Bear
And our lot's been the lot of an orphan
    And we've had a "stage orphan's" care.
Our coal land was grabbed by our Uncle,
    Our copper and fur by the Jews,
While another gang took all our salmon
    And corrupted our natives with booze.

Sam gave us an Army Commission
    And told it to build us a Trail,
But all that Sam gave was permission--
    He did...

Pat O'Cotter