Dumpster Diving for Your Love – Canto III
Recall we briefly that roiling, karst-filled land,
Where dogwood whispers and the Osage oranges play.
A soft bounty held by nature's fickle hand,
Where poverty's grip reigns o'er the people's day.
Here, where dreams end rolled and baled as hay,
This land of plenty, provides so few with gain,
In its bucolic beauty, shadows must needs remain.
The contrast stark, when excess meets despair,
The rural tale of struggle and a nation's lack of care.
Through those hills, soft streams, blue rivers flow,
And bird call fills the air with false frights,
Out of pace and want for more than wild woes
Of harsh hardships under Walmart parking lights.
Opportunities are scarce, out of sight,
A disconnect between the land's rich grace,
And the trials of those whom occupy this place.
Where are the opportunities to snatch from clear air,
Rolling languid through Ozark hills so fair?
'Twas in this blissful land, where love loud did resound,
Marta and John, their hearts entwined as one,
Their joyous revels, with laughter and no bounds,
Their lusty desire flamed beneath an Ozark sun.
Amidst wooded hills, where meth shacks oft abound,
Young love made repeated, until day is done,
Their light, a beacon unto darkest night,
Their urgent, frantic coupling, the forest creatures' fright.
And then, amidst debauchery so clear,
A shadow fell upon the raw and uncut scene,
Marta's father returned filled with wrath severe,
Spied them in the sleeping bag, deemed the love unclean.
With anger out of Heaven, Leo drew in near,
Disapproval curt and clear, face insane yet serene,
He confronted sweat-drenched lovers in the night,
His wrath a sharp and pointed quaking lightening strike.
But now I must digress to discuss a wretched lot:
Those whose verses wane when caught upon the page.
Their lofty lines and visions so oft come to naught,
Reciting aloud can reveal the folly of their ways.
Wasted, wrong words, in grandeur finely wrought,
But lacking soul, in truth they do betray,
For in the annals of poetic art,
Their names shall fade, any glory torn apart.
P-Nizzle, with your nature worship false,
Your dull reflections of the streets around,
Your verses fail to stir the heart's red pulse,
In shallow, swampy bogs, your poetry is found.
Jasper Q., your confessionals grant a grandiose repulse,
Your epics lost in verbosity profound,
Your lofty dreams, a mockery of youth,
In shallow, stanky bogs, they drown for lacking truths.
And ol' Smokey, with your fentanylish dreams,
Your visions born of blind disrepair,
Your rhymes dissolve like mist in headlight beams,
In hollow echoes, lost upon the air.
Your fancy twisting forms, like fleeting, empty streams,
Such genius dimmed by darkness lurking there,
In an opioid's grip, your soul sinks fast,
A sleepy figure clinging to a dying, distant past.