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An Ode To Country Living

An Ode To Country Living

The buzzards in the trees and the inter-net fees
make country life a hassle
and its hard to sing when you're just a king
with a mortgage on your castle

it gets hot inside the old double-wide
when the summer sun is baking
but with winter’s chill comes a heating bill
that’ll make your soul start aching

nine miles or more to the nearest store
just to get your beer and bacon
it gripes your ass as your car eats gas
and you feel like you’ve been taken

the back-yard deer keep your garden clear
of everything that’s growing
and you start to cry when the well runs dry
and your septic’s overflowing

but the catfish bite on a warm June night
and come Fall the squirrels are tasty
you can shoot a few for damned good stew
if you don’t get over-hasty

yeah the rural life brings you lots of strife
and sometimes things get gritty
but the squirrels and deer make it better here
then living in some damed city

C. Lon R. Bruso

Style / type: 
Structured: Western
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Comments

come high water and low
some people live with the hard
and the tough
so they dont mind when it
shifts from smooth to rough..

Great poem Lonnie...
been watching the world
and reading it from the
comforts of our little
smart coffee shop
and from the country I came
to the city I live..

but I miss the moments
in the woods
when the quiet or the
wild brought the good

Thank You!

Its good to hear from you and I hope all is going well up your way!

author comment

I can relate to this poem. ( not to the extent of having to eat squirrels though ). You have captured the hardship of living in the country - the cost / expense. We live 10 miles from the nearest town and hospital, ( though we do have a local store ). We find it costly living here - it must be even worse living right out in the sticks.

the stanza that really hit home, to me was this one,

the back-yard deer keep your garden clear
of everything that’s growing
and you start to cry when the well runs dry
and your septic’s overflowing.

and the heating bills aren't getting any cheaper.

As always I love the way you lay the poem out - with smooth running rhyme.

Thanks for sharing.

Love Mand xxxx

Yup, its tough out here, but I won't give it up until I get too old to drive! LOL!

author comment

Gods, but your writing is so, so full of memories for me!
You make me wish I had those nine miles to the nearest store, again.
But....lay off telling folks about squirrel stew, will you? If word gets around, they'll be gone in a summer!
heehee.
Subject's great, good cadence, good flow, nice choice of words, and your rhyme is, as always, real good.

Respectfully, Race

"Laws and Rules don't kill freedom: narrow-minded intolerance does" - Race-9togo

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Race_9togo

Glad you enjoyed my little parable about country life! Hope you and yours are doing fine!

author comment

Will look for your message! Glad you thought this one worthy!

author comment

Mand has is wrong, one doesn't Have to eat squirrel, one Gets to eat squirrell lol. Most folk are content with writing poetry with good end line rhyme but you have a lot of great internal rhyme in this one. BTW my septic tank gave me problems this past week. I guess it has had too much of Obama too lmao..............stan

You know, I haven't had gravy made from squirrel meat since childhood, but I can still remember how great it tasted! Thanks for the read and the comment!

author comment

Here in Oz living out of town can be sometimes 50-100kms in a few cases 1000's of km's to the nearest shop I used to live 60kms from the nearest shop or town it was a chore, at the time I had three small children we used to go into town once a fortnight to do our shop, we often ran out of water and we also had septic tanks that were forever mucking up, your poem brought back that time for me. Here we had kangaroos and dingo's and a million other critters that used to visit us we had a dam that in the afternoon at sundown the kangaroos would gather round I used to sit on the back verandah and watch them with the kids I live in town now but our goal is to get out of town in the next few years

I really enjoyed the read and its so good to see you again, I cant see anything that I can offer in the way of changes or improvements this is a tight piece

love to you both JC xxx

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats

Its good to know that I'm not alone in my mixed feelings about rural life! Hope all is going well for you and yours these days!

author comment

Brilliant Lonnie, gave me a good chuckle to start my day. Regards Roscoe...

Roscoe Llane,

Religion will rip your faith off, and return
for the mask of disbelief that's left.

Like I said in the poem, living in the country has its ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade it for the world! Thanks for reading!

author comment

I just have to walk the roads for road kill, an anything else that falls to the ground, we is just coming out of a time of plenty, I have a brand new cardboard box with cling film on the outside for the winter and have buried plenty of things around for later.
Went to the supermarket the other day but the garbage man beat me to it so now I have to wait another few days for some time ex stuff.
Great to have a frost last night it means the food will last longer.

Great write there jogged my memory to get stuff in before the winter, Take care of you Lonnie your words are food to many,
Yours as always Ian.T

.
There are a million reasons to believe in yourself,
So find more reasons to believe in others..

Glad this one tickled your fancy! Hope you are doing well over across the pond!

author comment

You crack me up Ian!

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