Newspoetry Plays Branson

It's not too far
To wear the flags
Wave a commercial greeting
Choking with bumper-to-bumper traffic
Bringing the masses
All the star-power they could wish
You have to go through Kabool
In the Show-me-how-to-spell-state

Through pillars of stone
Shaped by near-nuclear-size explosions
On land stolen from the natives
An American tradition
That never calls into question
What freedom means
When you're the loser
In a winner or mostly losers society
At least there's no sinful gambling
In this Midwestern Vegas
Everybody needs to feel like a winner
Even while the market's tanking
The world's largest banjo
Is still playing in Branson

Stone Hill Winery puts your head right
Indoor water parks to beat the heat
The Lumberjack Dinner Show chops while u eat
The American Presidential Museum beckons those
Who find Washington, DC too dangerous
For family fun today

Working families of entertainers
Entertain families of workers
Bragging on how their six-days-old offspring
Joined the troupe
As soon as mom could walk again
Earlyrisers can catch the breakfast show at 8AM
And another at 9:30AM
Ed MaMahon's Raising America
>From the dead?
>From the debauchery of coporate excess?
>From wondering why "they" hate us?
Where every show has been voted "Show of the Year"
In what must have been a whole series of Florida elections

The big local news is
The death of Haji, the miracle baby elephant
The first born through artificial insemination
A strange counterpoint
To a recently heard tale of Utah rabbit semen
Zapped into sterility
By nuclear testing

And remember when you're shopping
That trunk space is your only limitation
Never mind that credit limit
And just hope that you can escape the traffic jam
In a town that cries out for public transit
While it chokes on commercial excess

I parked the truck as soon as I could
And won't turn another wheel
Except to leave this place behind
What I'll miss will be the people
Who gave their health
And some, their children's health
To win a war that we didn't dare fight
A lesson no one should forget
In a time of loose talk
About endless Crusades
Remember that such thinking
Plunged Europe into the Dark Ages
Give us the light to see
The endless folly
Of war without end

http://www.branson-missouri.com/