Listening to alt country on Spotify I begin to wonder….
who are all these country boys
with their cowboy hats, pickup trucks and beards
staring clint-eyed into the mythical distance
listening for the call of who knows what
a phantom cattle drive, perhaps,
anything at all to git them
back on the road again;
and who are all these country girls
left behind or waiting
and why the hell do they care
about these feckless drifters
who love their whiskey
as much as they dread commitment
and why does all this happen in Texas?
rhymes and tropes, folks
rhymes and tropes
and slowly through
a Spotify fog
a Spotify trance
in the distance
a song emerges…..
Five Miles Outside of Austin
I’m five miles outside of Austin
with a pounding in my head
full of yesterday’s whiskey
and wishing I was dead
I left a girl back there sleeping
as dawn began to break
I gave her all that I could give
and I took all I could take
and I wish I had done better
that I hadn’t stayed so long
now I’m five miles outside of Austin
and I’m stuck inside this song.
Five miles outside of Austin
and I’m stuck inside this song.
II
Down the road, a girl is waiting,
drinking beer and playing pool
waiting for deliverance
waiting for another fool
and I’ll dust the road off of my coat
and walk through that door
she’ll say “howdy stranger,
I ain’t seen you before”
but now my head is beating like a bass drum
there’s stubble on my tongue
I’m five miles outside of Austin
and I’m stuck inside this song
Five miles outside of Austin
and I’m stuck inside this song.
Photo (by Marie Feeney) of Lukas Nelson and Neil Young at Desert Trip
Stopdraggingthepanda 
Now you’ve gone and done it – writing country songs. Eeek! (Actually, pretty darn funny)
LikeLike
Yes indeed, is there no bottom to my shallowness! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Short Poem extracted from previous post about Country Music | Stopdraggingthepanda
It’s actually good. The easy part is writing country songs. The hard part is taking credit for them. 😉
LikeLike
Well put, I’m starting to embrace it, and that’s worrying!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’ll stop worrying when you start embracing those cheques from Nashville. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Definitely not shallow, I enjoyed it, and those questions. As an outsider, it seems like a culture, a milieu, that has created itself, that feeds on itself, with a little help from the media.
LikeLike
Yes, it’s a construct of myths and archetypes and the odd good tune!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your poem is so fantastic
At first I googled it
I thought that someone famous
Had penned that rhyming lit!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey, thanks Robbie, glad you liked it and thanks for finding time to rhyme..JIM
LikeLiked by 1 person