SMALL TOWN TAPS

Overpopulation and profit replaces

The small town I once knew

Constructing new building faces

On streets and forests of my youth

The old, once strong, is buried now

Tacky and cheap, now is the new

The fields and farms, all bulldozed

As was I, in the proud, the few

A dealership on the corner here

Where I first tied my shoe

A box store on that corner there

Where I lost my second tooth

Me, JD, and Ronnie & Lonnie

And Tommy, were the crew

Not friends, or buds, or pals,

No, brothers, through and through

JD is out in Vegas now

Ronnie, buried with Arlington’s statues

Lonnie don’t work, injured on the job

Plus, gum cancer from the chew

Me and my memories, we walk alone

Searching desperate for a clue

The stomping grounds’ve done been stomped

Not even markers to salute

No woods we’d build a fortress in

no meadows we’d run through

The creek we’d go a fishin in

Water’s black instead of blue

The hilltop overlooking town

For late night rendezvous

Now instead of make-out point

Condos! Come see! Leasing soon!

Don’t stop progress in this world

An idea much too taboo

Like calling the war unjust and wrong

or boycotting the voting booth

the baseball field’s a center now

of medical pursuit

but Lonny, can’t afford to go

his copay’s huge and overdue

A Starbucks now with coffee hot

So hot, but please don’t sue

Served inside Mac’s old corner grill

With the town’s best barbecue

The drive-in theater we’d all go

Popcorn, pop, and a preview

Public storage now stands looming there

People cram their crap into

A new school like a megamall

No trace of mine in view

that flag draped on caskets though

On the same pole that mine did flew

The interstate exploding out

As are the avenues

Progress consumes each inch of land

Death by sprawl construction crews

Jackhammers ripping through the ground

Like shrapnel through tissue

The only constant is the change

The tactic, kill old with new

Now, if I’d a seen this coming then

Like a sayer of the sooth

Wouldn’t a worked so damn hard to survive

In that desert, to tell the truth

The donut shop’s a cell phone store

No chance of déjà vu

A world changed and ruined here

In the mirror as have you

The big wheel’s now a pickup truck

The cool aid, now a brew

The cigarettes aren’t candy now

A kiss is now a screw

This war zone of progress raging now

Like the war zone my gun drew

streets and structures I’m observing how

nothing’s same, not one or two

A chipotle replaced the tattoo shop

Where Tommy got that unauthorized tattoo

Boy it made his momma cry

She sobbed and sent him to his room

Though when for Tommy, the bugle blew

And when those guns did their salute

And when I handed her his red, white, and blue

She only then felt sorrow true

So when the only thing that matters sir

Is the growth of revenue

And you say my sentiment is false

“Jobs for you, is what’s the truth”

Then I will tell you clearly sir

So my words don’t misconstrue

to you I say, no thank you sir,

but more so, I say fuck you

rage and sorrow, felt for this land

in which this child grew

different ground on, now I stand

but the ground’s not all that’s skew

cause changed are the streets on which we ran

as are the runners too

and I myself, now as a man

have changed much, and so’ve you