Long Back country Poems

"Phew! got here in time to catch The Glacier Discovery Train. This journey is to be seen
to be believed. I am in Anchorage, Alaska. I am so out of breath running to the station.
Right, that's...

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I.
When Sullivan ‘Reno’ Richards rode into
the small, northern Utah town of Stillman,
he’d been unemployed going on three months
since he’d left his job as a hired gunhand.

He’d turned in his badge to the agency
when his brother...

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I love to spend my October afternoons walking ankle-deep in dried, curled leaves.
They cover the back country roads, the forest floor, and my own front yard.
But, I cannot bear to rake them away, or burn...

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I was in a bar in Texas,
in the eastern back-country,
with three beers already inside
and another draining quickly.
It was a perfect redneck bar,
the kind of place I love,
with sawdust on the floors below
and taxidermy up above.

A...

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I
The form we take
In the shape of a life
From trumpet birth blasts
To the final shadow sighs
The faithful leap
From a Dayton hill
To silver supersonic flight
A mountain of yellowing
Paper words and work
Of worn shoes
Discarded styles
An inland lake...

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...Through the woodlands the riflemen did steam,
reinforcing General Greene’s second line,
the British pressed on, still on the attack,
but they had quite the devil of a time.

Marching through forest that broke up their ranks,
while Americans poured...

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Did this stranger appear for reasons unknown? 
Just like that no good half-crazy other? 
Another stranger among those he knows not 
But alas he may be the others rugged brother 
His mind, yes it wanders...

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In the rugged mountain passes
Of the western Carolinas,
Just west of Hendersonville and east of Kentucky, USA,
In the land of the foothills and steep valleys down,
Exists a remote land forgotten in time.

Steeped in country legends, handed...

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Dear Papa,
Sad, my siblings and I,
Never got to meet with you;
You left us too soon,
Out in this cold, dark and unjust climate;
Out in the deep ghettos and jungles;
In the hands of conmen and wolves
In sheep's...

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The Demise of a Good Keen Man

                The Good Keen Man was a hunter in Government employ
   ...

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The old jalopy feels unloved and unwanted.
Many years now she has languished
in this long-abandoned junkyard.
Unhinged, she is an utter wreck.

She had been kept for her "parts" but now, not even for that! 
Very rarely, a...

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There’s a billy on the open fire
Piles of beech wood by the door
Smokey stains adorn the iron roof
Wax drips on bench and floor.

Old cobwebs drape the windows
Dog-eared cards upon a shelf
The half a dozen Readers...

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A SEASON OF INDIGENCE

This drought and curse
Of hand to mouth;
An unrepentant encroachment of pauperism
Impregnating our back country
Discern,
Our bigwigs in back country
Stand aloof
While,
Season after season
Millions of Pickneys
Flourish with kwashiokor
I,
A son of the soil,
A citizen of the...

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Perchance



I'll never know his name nor assume his thoughts,
This man I saw perchance today

Approaching from a distance I paid not much mind

Closer yet, the eyes adjust to features I have known 
This man perchance I've...

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No sunrise sparkled brighter,
No thunder clapped,
No trumpet sounded at your birth.
You were just born,
Grew to live youth,
To fish back country ponds, summer streams,
Run roadways and highways like a deer,
To work, to marry,
Raise a family, 
Retire...

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The sky royal blue as it overlooked king louie's castle
Tucked away serene in the back country
Not a knight out of place not even a distressed damosel to be saved
Even the dark musky dungeons were seeing...

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Enter Contest  
Sponsored by: Michael J. Falotico

Paladin, have  gun would travel,
The wrongs he’d sort, to unravel,
Fortunes soldier, no armour for him,
Didn’t need the judges gavel,
just a colt .45 and a grin

Where would he...

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What a nice drive today.

Good to get away,
From the city and it's noise....
To seek other joys, 
And here in this solitude 
Of a back country road,
My mind is glued
To what thou hath shown!
There's the glory...

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