In the Boondocks of the Ozarks
Salty caramel smelt of August
Swathes stench of rotten trailer parks
Imprisons barren mid-west dust

Feral fevered kids a hunting
For to cool; shoot up, or drink
Arthritic railroad; tie and shunting
Ferrous old town wretched on the brink

Since the cease of mine and logging
Depletion of iron lead and zinc
Nag horse too dead for flogging
Folks futures draining down the sink

Some respite in the summer heat
RV’s; tourists and campers for trails
Like blackfly plague pick off the meat
Fly fast; escape as another harvest fails

Dark currents pepper darker mood
Intolerance grinds in the daily way
Resentment bread as only food
At someone’s door the blame shall lay

In the graveyard of the Ozarks
Rednecks dance on industry tombs
Burn brown smoke spice. Moonshine sparks
Oblivion; no life. Back to mothers' womb

©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness 2018 – All rights reserved)

At a small tourist town
In the middle of the hills
Stands a bearded man
Sporting a derby
And shiny cowboy boots
Strumming his banjo
Folk music flows through the fresh
Windy mountain air
Soothing the tired traveler
A symbol of this nation
From the Ozark heart
Keeping a culture alive
With a rare talent
And a simple instrument
That few people play today

THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood-I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun-I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and **** ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting-I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes-And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart-and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where-For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and **** and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

This is america.
It's a one of a kind.
You can buy **** at the store.
You can bide your time.
Voting red or blue.
Is a favorite pastime.
Doesn't really matter which side you choose.
Like it doesn't matter if a poem will rhyme.
Hell you could write freestyle poetry about nothing
and that's accepted.
Cuz this is america and you're free to be an idiot. Inspected. Suspected.
Slot machines and credit cards
Stop lights and go-go bars
Social security and national debt
Red white and blue baby
We're the best!
Patriots of olde
and punks of New.
World Order abound
The olde ways are through!
By and by
Time after time
Woe are to those
With woman and child.
Times is tuff says the country station
but be the 5th caller
to win this Ozark vacation.
Skoal and Miller High Life 40s.
Marlboro Reds, rap music and shorties.
Sorry shawties but midgets are better.
What's more profound
than talkin bout the weather?
I forgot the original point
that I wanted to share with ya
but **** it, you know what I mean?
This is america.

The L.O.Z.,
The place to be,
The party town of Missouri,
Is what I call home.

The hills of the Ozarks
House every known allergen, as
Well as families that are cooking
Something to be paranoid about.

This man made body of
Water holds the rumors of
Dead bodies and piranhas
That parents tell as wives tales.

The forever changing lanes
Of highway will lead you
To the same place; once
You're here, you'll never leave.

The rolling landscape is covered
In litter and overgrown weeds.
Crosses from car wreck casualties
Line the roads like misplaced bones.

Everyone that isn't from here
Thinks that this is paradise.
Everyone that lives here
Calls it the State of Misery.

wait for it and it doesn't come

caught off guard 

incredulous singing



squawking pigeons

six in the morning

kings of the ready

dead finch



cats eat feathers

in the house of cards

down stairs ready

house of carnivores



company functions

canvass paints numbers

paints horses riding
steady in mind--

through


windy
 ozark meadows

six in the morning

while the finch
sleeps in

Bats arrived
In the Ozark hills
Lived among
The people
Taking a human body
As the sun went down

Some got drunk
On homemade whiskey
Passing out
Getting trapped
By the bright morning sunrise
Turning to mere dust

I roll through these scenes
with impulsive magnificence.
Sometimes its rolling,
sometimes I flip.
Sometimes I find myself
extenuating the struggle
horseback
through catapulted
decades of
fur-
trapped
ozark
witchcraft
dirt

My birthday is today
Seventeen years since another Sunday at 9 AM
On top of a mountain called Ozark
In a land that reminded me of Harry Potter
Called Pettigrew like Peter
It's forests elicited sprites and daddy long legs
Made of me a changeling then spit me back out

I learned what real ice tea was at the age of three
It was my birthday
Doing Pirouettes on my aunts Patio
Again, under Arkansas stars
With faery lights leading my way
I ascended to the brush behind the house
Got lost in the greens and browns of paradise's supply
Returned with flesh painted the colour of love

In an apartment overlooking crab apple trees
Fresh Canadian foliage fostering a well concealed creek
On a 90 degree angle over a dark chocolate cake
My ninth birthday
I drank pickle juice because Vinny said it was limonade
I wore dresses that year
And coveted baskets filled to brim with blossoms
Baked the crab apples into a pie
But preferred mama's banana cream
I wore bandages on my arms
and grass stains on my knees
My tears washed away like Crayola markers
And my biggest inner questions had to do
With what was for breakfast
And the lifespan of a temporary tattoos

14 came with a ******* bow
Done up gaudily in greys with a sad little smile
Three years marked with pink splotches and lines
A subject to hormones and arsenic tones
My birthday
A celebration of decay
And mama still sang, and baked, and kissed my face
And didn't wake when I placed cotton ***** in her ears
Because I was a happy girl

Today is my birthday
And mama exclaims
"No more babies! All four of you are so grown!"
But the mirror still illustrates an odd little show
With a baby face
A girls chest
And a womans hips
An ordinary freak all stitched up
Awkward and too much of everything
But not enough all the same
And inside I know
Is a sea of paradoxical Samanthas
Some stubborn and loud
Some shy and reserved
All with changes to make
Books to read
And places to go
And  only few that are quite wanting yet
To be 17

It’s finally Friday night
there’s not a professor in sight.

If you think I’m happy - you’re right!

My homework assignment is light,
I just have an essay to write.

We and our sister suite will unite,
dragging a couch over, so the seating is right.

We’ll binge on Ozark most of the night,
‘cause we’re all Justin Bateman acolytes.

Pizza and ice cream will be a highlight,
in an evening of lazy delights.

I wish you could join us on-site,
but a quarantine prevents the invite.