Small Town Poem by Randy McClave

Where are you going to work in my small town
Is this where you want to put your roots down?
All the factories and the plants are now all gone
They have slowly and sadly all moved on.
The youths are now all moving away
They are looking for bigger cities to live with better pay,
They are no good paying jobs with benefits around here
So, to the bigger cities they all steer.
There are few or any union jobs left in my city
And that is just a shame and a pity,
So, I wonder about our children in our high school
What I wonder for work will be there tool.
Will they need a diploma to go to work
Maybe at a fast food restaurant where free food is the perk
Maybe they'll try to be a doctor or a nurse
Or maybe a lawyer who chases a hearse.
In my small town we have the homeless and the needy
And druggies selling drugs to help the soulless and the greedy,
And we have beggars here nearly on every street corner
And we have racists who hates the poor and the foreigner.
We will always support our High-school sport's team
Where in our soul they will forever gleam,
And we know all our neighbors by their first name
And that is where I met and married my first true flame.
I still enjoy to visit our local park
Where I enjoy its beauty in the daytime and also in the dark,
And many times while alone I feed the fish in the pond
Same place where many of my dreams had been spawned.
People are still leaving this small town where I reside
My city where I live where I still have hope and pride,
Where I dine and where I shop the town either up or down
This is my small town.

Randy L. McClave