Famous Idaho Poems by Famous Poets

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...ck Cuba's cry 
Came up the tropic wind, "Now help us, for we die!" 
Then Alabama heard, 
And rising, pale, to Maine and Idaho 
Shouted a burning word. 
Proud state with proud impassioned state conferred, 
And at the lifting of a hand sprang forth, 
East, west, and south, and north, 
Beautiful armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and young 
Shed on the awful hill slope at San Juan, 
By the unforgotten names of eager boys 
Who might have tasted girls' love and been stung 
With the ol...Read more of this...

...a sudden notion that I'd kindo' like to rove;
An' so I bought a ticket, jest as easy as could be,
From Pumpkinville in Idaho to Rome in Italy;
An' found myself in seven days of mostly atmosphere
A-starin' at a statoo called Appoller Belvydeer.

Now I'm a rum-soaked sinner, an' religion ain't my plan,
Yet, I was flabbergasted by that gol-darned Vattyican;
An' when I seed Saint Peter's dome, all I could do was swear,
The which I reckon after all may be a form o' prayer;
Abut a...Read more of this...

...back next day,
And wept! - they kicked him from the door.

They reckoned they were mighty slick,
Them two tinhorns from Idaho;
That poor dumb Swede could swing a pick,
but that was all he'd ever know.
So sitting in a poker game,
They lost the price for which they sold
To that bonehead a poor dud claim
That didn't have a speck of gold.

My story's true as gospel creed
Of these bright boys from Idaho;
They made a sucker of that Swede
And laughed to see the poor boob go,
And wor...Read more of this...

...bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,   
who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,
who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,
who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,
who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed...Read more of this...

...rs,
the audible sorrow and beta decay of Old Battersea Bridge.
 I like the idea of different

theres and elsewheres, an Idaho known for bluegrass,
 a Bronx where people talk
like violets smell. Perhaps I am somewhere patient, somehow
 kind, perhaps in the nook

of a cousin universe I've never defiled or betrayed
 anyone. Here I have
two hands and they are vanishing, the hollow of your back
 to rest my cheek against,

your voice and little else but my assiduous fear to cherish...Read more of this...

...ut

Fishing in America had been Lord Byron and had died in

Missolonghi, Greece, and afterward never saw the shores

of Idaho again, never saw Carrie Creek, Worsewick Hot

Springs, Paradise Creek, Salt Creek and Duck Lake again.

The Autopsy of Trout Fishing in America:

 "The body was in excellent state and appeared as one that

had died suddenly of asphyxiation. The bony cranial vault

was opened and the bones of the cranium were found very

hard without any traces of the s...Read more of this...

...Big Redfish Lake, about four miles from

Stanley and looked it over. Big Redfish Lake is the Forest

Lawn of camping in Idaho, laid out for maximum comfort.

There were a lot of people camped there, and some of them

looked as if they had been camped there for a long time.

 We decided that we were too young to camp at Big Redfish

Lake, and besides they charged fifty cents a day, three dol-

lars a week like a skidrow hotel, and there were just too

many people there. There ...Read more of this...

...ds of silly minnows, swimming close to the shore

and busy putting in hours of Mack Sennett time.

 The minnows were an Idaho tourist attraction. They

should have been made into a National Monument. Swimming

close to shore, like children they believed in their own im-

mortality .

 A third-year student in engineering at the University of

Montana attempted to catch some of the minnows but he went

about it all wrong. So did the children who came on the

Fourth of July week...Read more of this...

...that same Spirit of St. Louis

nobility and purpose of expression, except that his North At-

lantic was the forests of Idaho.

 There was a woman cuddled up close to him. She was one

of those great cuddly women of the past, wearing those pants

they used to wear and those hightop, laced boots.

 They were standing on the porch of the lookout. The sky was

behind them, no more than afewfeet away. People in those days

liked to take that photograph and they liked to be in it....Read more of this...

...British Nigeria and came

to America when he was two years old and was raised as a

ranch kid in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

 He was a machinegunner in the Second World War, against

the Germans. He fought in France and Germany. Sergeant

Pard. Then he came back from the war and went to some

hick college in Idaho.

 After he graduated from college, he went to Paris and be-

came an Existentialist, He had a photograph taken of Exis-

tentialism and himself sitting at a sid...Read more of this...

..., singing, withdrawing, 
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving, 
From the Cascade range to the Wasatch—or Idaho far, or Utah, 
To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding,
The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity—the settlements, features all, 
In the Mendocino woods I caught. 

5
The flashing and golden pageant of California! 
The sudden and gorgeous drama—the sunny and ample lands; 
The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado...Read more of this...

...the collapsible coatrack
in the narrow hallway outside my room

The TV lounge next door is wide open
it is midnight in Idaho
and the throb easy subtle spin
of the electric slide boogie
step-stepping
around the corner of the parlor
past the sweet clink
of dining room glasses
and the edged aroma of slightly overdone
dutch-apple pie
all laced together
with the rich dark laughter
of Gloria
and her higher-octave sisters

How hard it is to sleep 
in the middle of life....Read more of this...

...At a roundup on the Gily,
    One sweet mornin' long ago,
  Ten of us was throwed right freely
    By a hawse from Idaho.
  And we thought he'd go-a-beggin'
    For a man to break his pride
  Till, a-hitchin' up one leggin,
    Boastful Bill cut loose and cried--

    "_I'm a on'ry proposition for to hurt;_
    _I fulfil my earthly mission with a quirt;_
      _I kin ride the highest liver_
      _'Tween the Gulf and Powder River,_
    _And I'll break this thin...Read more of this...

...t, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my 
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas 
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my 
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your 
sun rising swiftly from the right my 
sun rising swiftly from the left your 
moon rising slowly form the left my 
moon rising slowly ...Read more of this...

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