Tuesday, September 7, 2010


There is a quaint little place in my home town where children still play outside. Where folks sit on the porch and neighbors talk to each other over the fence. Where the ice cream truck stops for kids who's parents are no were in sight. Where young ladies walk down the sidewalks past the town drunk and no one pay it any mind. In this place neighbors know each other and go across the street for help when they run a cup short of milk, or need to stretch an extension cord next door because the utility company shut off their power. In this charming berg the rats are fat and fearless, and the dreams of the young are watched by cockroaches. The sick show their infirmity to all, and the old hobble along with down cast eyes. The streets are littered, and the grass grows long, and the vacant property disintegrates. Cars squeal their tires, and helicopters circle above, and used diapers gather in the cutters.

There is a quaint little place in my home town where the houses look like palaces, and the lawns are fenced and manicured and the owners are never seen, and the streets have no children, and no litter. There is a place in my hometown where the police sit and watch for rif raf that drifts across the tracks. Where gates open and close automatically at the end of long cobble stoned driveways. Where the cars are all new, and the schools are all excellent, and the people tending the lawns ride buses, or get picked up in old trucks that drive them home to a quaint little place in my home town where the children run naked in the yard.

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