Tumbleweed!
Where there is no right side to the tracks
Where brides wear rags and beggars wear white
And they're all made up like clowns
It's a fucking freakshow, this town.
The streets here bleed
A steady flow of lowlives and sadsacks
And never a day goes by without a halfhearted fight
Or murder theft rape arson
And zho's going to stop them?
The judges are all drunk
And the sheriff's asleep, dreaming of a haven
Where there are no laws to break or uphold.
The ghosts of dead soldiers haunt the saloon
Drinking the milk of the moon.
There's a preacher-punk
Stands on a soapbox, says we'll all go to Heaven
Because there is a Heaven - at least that's what we're told -
"Where the angels leave tracks in the clouds and smoke:
Cigarettes don't kill you up there, folks!".
And the streets speak.
Word on the street is, there is a war on
That's being fought with harps and firehoses.
Word on the street is, they've got us by the balls
And they won't let go till the fat lady falls.
There's a circus freak
(Most people think he's a bit of a moron)
Who lives off nothing but sunshine and roses
In the evil dusk he dances and sings
Like a loose plastic bag or a mad English King.
Welcome O stranger to Tumbleweed!
Where dreamers come to die and the dead come to feed...
I wrote a first version of this poem over a year ago. THen a second, then a third. It has been a sonnet, a blank-verse freeform, a prose poem and a dramatic monologue. I think this is the final version.
