A Small Georgia, Baptist Town

"A Small Georgia, Baptist Town"


The town happened
As if a fake Chinese magician
Pulled out of a top hat,
Not a rabbit,
But scraps of a metropolis.

A checkerboard was sculptured
Out of Carrara marble,
Placed to remain forever in the public square.

A stone soldier standing atop an obelisk
Puts his bayonet through the sky,
Opening a hole for the town to look through.

A movie house opened,
Everyone galloped in the aisles,
Shooting bison and Indians,
Robbing trains, cutting down trees;
Then the movie closed,
Leaving the children crippled
From falling off horses.

The pretty farm girls became
Pretty shirt sellers in haberdasheries,
Became the whores
Of rich old farmers who rode around
In red convertibles.

All the farmers who loved,
Rather than exploited the earth,
Were poor and died of hookworm.


Duane Locke

Posted over on Thieves Jargon