“Idyllic”

On By Mike U.In Poetry

“Idyllic”
© 2025 by Michael L. Utley

Leroy blew his
fingers off with
blasting caps he stole
from some old granary
and he’d chew on the
blackened stumps
while waiting
for the school bus
like some kind of
hard dude
like he didn’t feel
a thing
I hated him
but I understood
numbness
and I knew he was
dead inside
knowing his
little sisters
were never
coming back
from that long-ago
pile of twisted metal
on the highway
he was sixteen
and already
an old man

Ronnie was a
psycho
and a pusher
and drove a
piece of shit
Chevy truck
with a .30-06
in a window rack
and his eyes
danced with
hellfire
when he wasn’t
shooting up crank
he was shooting up
mailboxes
and stealing anything
that wasn’t nailed down
and one surreal
summer evening
he almost killed me
and I saw the face of
true evil
up close and personal
my old man
would have been proud
Ronnie was already DOA
and he didn’t even
know it
a wraith
barreling down
a midnight country road
with Skynyrd blasting
and his mind
completely blown

Old Bud had a penchant
for booze
and young girls
and enough sway with
the local LEOs
to look the other way
when his granddaughters
came to visit
his self-proclaimed
redneck empire
collapsed one day when
his black heart came a cropper
and his corpulent ass
gave up its ghost
and its secrets
no shame for the shameless
his little kingdom in ruins
but all those skeletons
remain

my old man was
an anomaly
among this
cretin coterie
this hick menagerie
his arrogant bullying
earned him the moniker
“little hitler”
among the Leroys
and Ronnies
and Old Buds
of this nowhere place
this idyllic pastoral
version of hell
his NRA card-waving
wife-beating
chest-thumping
sturm und drang
racist dog and pony show
approach to country life
perhaps a little too much
for their liking
he was a laughingstock
and too proud to know it
hubris is a helluva drug

and one by one
between shoot-outs
and break-ins
and meth labs
and murders
and suicides
and all the
hidden horrors
birthed by the
brackish hearts of men
these restless ghosts
have faded into
oblivion
only barren fields remain
derelict houses
rife with caustic memories
and the soundless hush
of the uneasy dead
listen closely
and steel yourself
against what this
silent place may
tell you

things are never
ever
as they seem

50 thoughts on ““Idyllic””

    1. Thanks, Annette. Trying do to some different stuff here recently. Writing with a hammer instead of a quill, as it were. The character sketches in this poem are all based on real events and real people–real neighbors–who lived near the farm on which I was raised. Many people have a misconception of rural life, believing it all to be tidy houses with porch swings and red barns and chickens and green pastures with white fences and lambs and grazing cows… The reality is often times far from it. There are meth labs, murders, drug dealers, thieves, kidnappers, child abusers/molesters, wife beaters and worse living in rural areas, and my rural area wasn’t idyllic by any stretch. We were surrounded by literal criminals, had our sheds broken into multiple times, I had my life threatened. We kept our doors and outbuildings locked all the time. And my own dad was among the worst of the bunch. Idyllic farm life is pretty much a myth. It’s a weird poem. 🤔

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      1. I was glad to read your comment that stated you based these characters on real people. Every line rings with truth. I am amazed at your story telling ability and heartbroken by your story ❤️ I live in a small Midwestern town, and have worked in the legal system for 25 years. These types of people are not strangers to me, but none impacted me personally, thank God. An unforgettable poem.

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      2. Thank you, Lisa. Yes, it was a sort of an eye-opening moment for me when I first realized long ago that folks are pretty much the same everywhere. The myth of the innocence and safety and goodness of country life is just that–a myth. And it makes it even more difficult to trust people anymore. We never really know who we’re dealing with when we talk to someone, not even our closest neighbor just down the road…

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      1. It’s the way you give us the details that just make the writing pop off the page. It’s like you’re unfolding it all right before us in a way significantly linked to you and only you.

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    2. I’ll tell you what, trE, those images are still so vivid in my mind, like the teenager gnawing on the blackened stump of his thumb and so many others. I’m just trying to lasso these images and run with them, and let everything flow. It’s exhilarating and even a little scary at times as the memories bubble up from their black lagoons. It also feels vital, immediate, electric. Just trying out some new ideas here.

      Thanks so much, my friend. Truly appreciate you. 😊

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    1. Thank you kindly, Liz. It really is disheartening when you find out your rural neighbors are capable of the same egregious behavior you see occurring in urban areas. It’s part of the myth of peaceful country living.

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    1. Many thanks, Violet. My boyhood on the farm was filled with stories, rumors and local newspaper articles of our neighbors’ crimes, trials and punishments. The people mentioned in this poem are based on real neighbors whose farms were within two miles of our farm. There were other neighbors with equally poor (and even worse) behavior in the area. Country life can be wonderful, but it’s best to keep one’s doors locked at night, you know?

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  5. I really love this, Mike. The ugliness, cruelness, and corruption of these characters feels so real to me these days as we live with their votes, their “idyllic pastoral / version of hell.” I read the comment above and I appreciate your hammer! I’m so angry at my rural neighbors that I can barely be civil. The rural life is threaded with bigotry and ignorance at the very least. Your descriptions are vivid and drew me into this story. Deftly done, my friend. Keep hammering out these powerful poems.

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    1. Thanks so much, Diana. My rural area was a place referred to as Ucolo (most folks pronounce it u-cola), about an hour from where I live now. It straddles the UT/CO state line. All farmland and uranium mines and semi-desert vegetation. Even back when I was a kid growing up there in the ’60-’80s, there were drugs everywhere there. The worst crimes imaginable (including kidnapping, rape and murder) occurred within six miles of our farm. There were three main rural “crime families” so-to-speak who were notorious for theft, drug-running, child molestation, violence, etc. The characters depicted in this poem are based on real neighbors, all of whom are dead now. It’s almost like some weird, sinister bastardization of Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting, only with the guy holding an AR-15 and the woman bound and gagged…

      These people were dead by the time the trump cult arrived, but I guarantee you they all would have been red-hatters, as would my dad if he were still alive. There’s always something to destroy everything for everyone else.

      Well, time to go wash my mouth out with soap (I detest profanity, but these last two poems of mine demanded the harshness of base, guttural language).

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      1. There are a lot of scary people in this country, and I suppose, in this world. We have a lot of meth here and related theft. Fortunately, not much violent crime other than all forms of abuse. Ugh. I’m not liking most Americans today. This poem is powerful and perfect, even with the potty words.

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  7. That type of community trauma will surely leave its imprint on an area, won’t it. Tragic and haunting and it feels like a folk song layered in there. Powerful piece, Mike! Strong theme at the end. 👍🏻

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    1. Thank you, Michele. Community trauma is right. I haven’t been out that way in nine and a half years (even though it’s only an hour away), but I have a feeling nothing has changed, at least not for the better. And you’re right about the folk song aspect. I didn’t notice it until you mentioned it, but yes, I wish I could still play my guitars–It would be sort of cool to make a song out of it. 🎸🎶😎

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  8. So much for the picturesque rural peaceful paradise, might this is a sucker punch and so gut wrenching true! Sad to had to witness and sad we are on this train once again. Thanks for your gifts in print hammering out the truth! 😢♥️

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    1. Thanks, Cindy. It’s unfortunate, for sure. High poverty rates and a lack of education in rural areas create some really disturbing behavior, and it seems to be passed down through the generations unless someone actively attempts to break the cycle. It’s sad as well as dangerous.

      I’m sure there are exceptions–not every rural area suffers as badly as others and I hesitate to paint with broad brush strokes–but in my area of southwest Colorado, this is the case. I also lived in the South for awhile years ago (South Carolina, Louisiana), and rural areas there really suffer in this regard.

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    1. Thanks, Michelle. It’s strange how memories of the past remain so crisp and vibrant decades later. These people really existed–these were neighbors whose farms were within two miles of the farm on which I was raised. You’re right–so many of these people and incidents could be portrayed in stories. This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the lives of many of the folks who lived in my area (and who probably still do–I haven’t been to that area in more than nine years and honestly, I hope I never return). Truly shocking stuff.

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  10. Is this what rural life has come to in the US?

    I live in a small town in the UK, and it’s not as bad here, although a young man was stabbed and killed in the town centre a few months ago, and another deliberately run down and killed after an argument outside a pub. But these things are relatively rare. I hope they don’t become more common.

    Your words are powerful, Mike. They certainly pack a punch.

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    1. Thank you so much. I can only speak of my personal experience over my 61 years of life, but yes, generally speaking, it’s gotten pretty rough here. I’ve lived in several areas of the U.S. (Southwest where I was raised, Pacific Northwest, and the Southeast), and everywhere was similar. Where abject poverty and lack of education overlap, some horrible behaviors (domestic violence, drug use, guns, rapes, killings, etc.) and biases exist. Our political system has been brought to its knees–democracy replaced with fascism–in large part due to this trend of rural areas (especially in southern and midwestern states) voting for hateful and racist polices. Uneducated voters are easily swayed by conspiracy theories, lies and propaganda, hence the rise of trump and his awful authoritarian movement. In my immediate area, there are two major Native American reservations (Navajo and Ute tribes), and the poverty level on the reservations is really high. Plenty of racism from the white population is aimed at the local Native American and Latino populations. Voters here embrace hate and favor fascism. This is what happens in rural areas where people are uneducated and never exposed to–or refuse to accept–other cultures, races, creeds, religions, philosophies, etc. like those who live in urban regions are accustomed to. It’s a mess, and it’s unfortunate.

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      1. All I can say I how sad I am that the situation is as it is. Yes, lack of education is one of the causes as I see it from all the way across the ocean.

        I really struggle to understand racist and other forms of hatred. I can usually get at least a bit into the minds of people, but these people who hate, and for no good reason, I can’t understand.

        Yes, hate your neighbour because s/he is rude, plays loud music into the night and refuses to stop, has rubbish building up in their front garden etc, but not because of something they have no control of, like their race, gender or sexual orientation.

        But hatred is never a good thing.

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    1. Thanks, Peggy. Taking a sort of brutalist approach here. These last couple of poems have been really raw and intense, and I’m surprised at some of the emotions (and language) that have come out. It’s interesting, and the purging nature of this kind of poetry acts as a venting mechanism.

      I appreciate your kind support as always. my friend. Hope your weekend is going well. 😊

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    1. Thank you so much–this means a lot to me. I’m so proud of Michelle and all of her hard work. It’s such an important collection, and I hope it serves as a light in the darkness for a lot of folks. I appreciate your kindness, my friend. 😊

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    1. Thanks, Lauren. Yes, it’s a sad (and at times scary) reality that rural folks often face. Poverty, lack of education, generational biases/prejudices, an overwhelming tendency towards right-wing extremism, and a weird sense of being above the law simply because there aren’t any cops around in the rural areas lead to some pretty messed-up behavior. The worst crimes imaginable happened within a few miles of our farm. The local paper always seemed to run the same names in the police blotter and court docket sections each week, and usually those names belonged to our neighbors. There’s always someone around to ruin things for everyone else…

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      1. You’ve definitely opened my eyes. We’ve never lived in the country, but we love driving on the country roads and getting away from town. I’m so sorry you have those horrible memories of your neighbors. If I could, I’d package up some joy with a big red bow and send your way. ❤️

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  14. Mike, this is brilliant. I have been enjoying the comments after reading the piece to Scott. We visited the tiny town where I was isolated with my parents in the true south when we moved from Washington State. It was so strange trying to imagine myself there now. We did find a neighbor that I cared about that was still alive, although quite old. It was such a trip seeing her after decades and she recognized me right away. Talk about crazy. I could relate to many of the things you said, and I also understand that what people picture and what it is like in rural areas, especially as children, is different from what people think it is like. We lived around some very poor folks and a rich peanut farmer with his airstrip and airplane. I have traveled around enough now to know that no matter where you go you find all those things they are just more carefully hidden. Crack houses were in Washington State, and believe me, there are a whole lot of folks who live in the top 10 to 2 percent of the country’s wealth that are enormous Trump fans. One wonders where their brain has gone. If he were anyone else, he would have been hauled off by the powers to be, for treason.

    Ignorance is bliss, they say, and that is the way of the world today. It was scary then, and it is now.

    This new hammer method you are using is great, and I loved this piece of writing. I can get a visual of these characters pretty easily. Thanks Mike, I really enjoyed this and so did Scott. Big hugs and love my friend.

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    1. Thanks, Joni. When I lived in South Carolina and Louisiana, it was easily apparent how stratified the people/classes were, even in towns. Where I grew up (one hour from where I now live), there are only a few small towns (my current town has about 9,000 people), and everything else is rural farmland, a few mines, woods, mountains and desert. This entire region is noxiously red politically, which means rampant racism, guns, and a tendency towards violence. Generations pass down deep-seated biases and prejudices, and because people aren’t exposed to much diversity here like that found in cities, there tends to be fear and hatred towards anyone who’s not a right-wing white cis-male. This town even has a hate group that should be placed on the SPLC watch-list. This is redneck country, sadly, and I hate labeling people, but it’s the truth. And I know everywhere you go, there will be undesirable people and behavior. Such is the world in which we live, right?

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    1. Thanks, Michelle. It’s such an aggressive poem. I suppose I’ve been venting because everything is so freaking stressful right now, here and abroad. If I don’t let it out, I’ll lose myself. I’m glad to know you and your daughter enjoyed this one. I appreciate it so much, my friend. 😊

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