The moon, in June, makes me swoon ...

Believe it or not, Idaho is occasionally described as something of a "cultural backwater." The aristocrats of our society may seem friendly enough when they fly in to Sun Valley, don their thousand-dollar pre-worn pearl-inlaid cowboy boots, and try to pass themselves off as locals at the Casino, but don't be fooled. They're laughing on the way in, and they're laughing on the way out, and they're not laughing with us. "Those backwood redneck hillbillies!" they say. "Why, they wouldn't know the difference between Ossetra and Sevruga, much less whether to put the period inside or outside the quotation marks at the end of a sentence! Ha ha!"

Sadly, there are those among us who, after hearing such belittlement their entire lives, begin to buy into this absurd characterization. It is for those that this is intended. Read on, and never again doubt that you are, without question, at the Cultural Center Of The Universe.

Poetry, at its best, can break the hardest of hearts. It can tear away the steely facade that we put forward to the world and leave us weeping unabashedly in front of all. It can make us see our true selves. At its worst, it involves a man from Nantucket, and even then, it's pretty damn good.

So for your reading pleasure, I bring you the following: Two collaborative efforts, composed on bar napkins, through a process in which the napkin is passed around the table, with each successive drunken idiot poet writing a line while having access only to the previous line, and from Nick, what can only be described as a cowboy classic.

Enjoy ...

The corner of night is a fence
PBR is a balloon in a peacock
To ride that taurus is a cosmic bucking bull of cherries
A hint of blackberries and
A strong sense of tanning means there is
Anise in the air
Frolicking through the flowers finds feelings only felt functionally fantastic
Get gone.

The morning is here, like an unwanted guest
The dead acorn, his applesauce, a dove
Aaaah … the essence of love juice
Sweet release of tightened noose
I found myself unstuck in time in a palouse
Or so it goes
I walked into the forest,
Finally able to ignore the trees.

-------------------

Feel a passion drenched fantasy
As your genitals are taken by a lawnmower
So the blades of life
Can trim the hair of your soul
Like pubic hair, like morning glories
The strange girl threw up in her mouth
Enough to make her think he’s handsome
Not enough to think he’s rich
But happy with the beer in his hand
He drinks and fights the desire to stand
My boss just quit the job,
Says he’s gonna find blind spots
And he’ll do it
Pathetic? Perhaps. I choose not.
A hymn to life, as Jimmy said
The tables fall away, and jackpot.

-----------------

Have you ever pictured rednecks in love
As beautiful as the sunrise
And wholesome as the dove

He smiled a toothless smile
And dropped a beer can in the sink
Rubbed himself a little, and gives a wink

The make the trailer rock
And the sofa lounger sway
They’ll do it in the dirt,
But prefer it in the hay

She thought he was the most
Handsome thing she’d ever saw
And pulled a gnat from an armpit
And shot it through a straw.

He remembered his eye vetoed
The first time they met
And her tube top clinging to her breasts
From summer’s sweet sweat

Since that moment on,
He never left her side
Rented a little plot
And bought a single-wide.

It’s a day they’ll always cherish
And think of while they’re spooning
The day destiny stepped in
At that family reunion.

Next week ... Sestinas!