In our small town of Hixton, Wisconsin,
The future looked decidedly grim.
Population was down to four hundred
And we all thought its best days had been.
We’re a small town North West of Milwaukee
where U.S Thirteen passes by.
Here the median age is past forty,
with less than one girl for each guy.
The town fathers were in a quandary;
scratching their heads and their chins.
Half the houses were vacant and boarded;
Just a trickle of tax coming in..
“Our churches are bare ruined choirs,
Our young finish school and they leave.
The town as we know it is dying,
There’s only one chance of reprieve!”
Some thought it an outlandish suggestion.
It offended all those who believe.
“The renaming of Hixton, Wisconsin
must be done with all possible speed.”
“Desperate times demand desperate measures;
This is the last card I have up my sleeve.”

It was done as our Mayor suggested
and, as hoped for, the new blood poured in.
Our post mark is much in demand now;
Since we began living in “Sin”

At Seventeen, a girl might buy a dress and look towards her prom;
music and dancing through the night with a Beau upon her arm.
At Seventeen the night might end in a gentle tender kiss
As couples watch the Sun rise as it gives the waves the slip.
At Seventeen, a girl might think of college and career.
She might listen to loud music and maybe sneak a beer.


For a victim of progeria, life holds no such charms;
At Seventeen, her time is short, too soon she will be gone.
At Seventeen, in human terms, this girl was ninety-five;
every day a battle in the struggle to survive.
Like a comet burning brightly coming too close to the Sun
Hayley, wiser than her years, burned brightly and was done.

There once was a man who drew lines in the sand
daring Bashar Al-Assad to cross.
When “the Lion” so dared he was so unprepared
our man looked like the back of a horse.
Now the same man says he’ll stare down Iran
There’s no need for advice and consent.
John Kerry, his proxy, the Ketchup Queen’s mate,
Ignores deadlines that he never meant
He’ll bargain some more til he sells out the store
The Jews, our lone allies, be dammed.
When the I.C.B M.S rain with bombs they’ll obtain
Tel Aviv will melt into the sand
Then we’ll all learn the true cost of “Peace in Our time”
with the murderous thugs from Iran.

If Love has made a fool of me is it not ever so?
To be Love’s Fool is more the rule than exception; This I know.
Those eyes, those lips, each stolen kiss bestowed upon your jester
makes my being a fool for Love not much of a disaster.
In Spring, a young man’s thoughts are of Love and not of the hereafter.
I’m drunk upon the sight of you, besotted by your laughter.

Once his kind were ubiquitous; Men and their ponies herding live beef
from the prairies of Kansas and Texas to the slaughterhouses North East
It was a hard life, but good, nights out under the stars; amusing themselves with a song.
There was beans and good coffee shared at the fire; The prairie wind blew sweet and long.
Then the trains came and life wasn’t the same and the cowboys all faded away.
Old Tex was the last of that vanishing breed; He’d tell me tall tales of those days
when he and his crew battled rustlers and snakes to see the herd safe to their doom.
His skin was like leather from the wind and the sun; his big hands arthritic and gnarled.
A roll your own cigarette drooped from his lips and his speech sounded more like a snarl.
Tex passed on last night, a blessing they say, to die in his sleep with no pain.
No churchyard for Tex, he will rest ‘neath the sod just out beyond the old grange
He was the last of a vanishing breed; a man to his quarter horse wed.
The land that he loved will keep changing above, but the wind and the stars never change.

There is nothing to be done, nothing anyone can say
that will salve old Pedro’s heartache and take his grief away.
Three generations of his girls died in the tragic crash.
Their tickets all read “Dusseldorf” but they all died in France.
The old man sits dejected with his head hid in his hands.
A senseless act has claimed their lives, this much he understands.
A church bell tolls the call to prayer in Barcelona Spain.
They pray for all the victims of a pilot gone insane.
He forms their names upon his lips. It is a soundless cry.
His loved ones fell to earth they say out of a clear blue sky.

In Sandy Springs stands a mansion, but not for very long.
The trees, grown great, will share its fate, soon all will be gone.
“its progress!” say the town fathers; a new subdivision tract.
To preservationists it’s a tragedy; mark the calendar in black.
A massive Tudor mansion, an edifice so grand-
At fifteen thousand square feet it could house a massive clan.
Too soon the wood will splinter and the stone and stucco part.
The walls will be imploded as the demolition starts.
The wrecking ball will smash stained glass that Tiffany supplied.
You will almost hear the timbers shriek as the vandals work inside.
The stately home of Thomas Glenn was once Atlanta’s pride.
It was finished in the tragic year of Nineteen twenty nine.
He passed away soon after, the family moved away.
Now empty, its’ clocks all stopped, it waits its’ judgement day.
We men of mortal flesh all know how quick we pass away.
Our achievements soon forgotten, our honors made of clay.
We build great homes to house our kin; this hall was built to last.
Yet “progress” is inexorable and this; a relic from the past.