Andrew Jacob Jung | + Follow Poet |
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Piketown Blues

I'm gettin' outta Piketown
I'm tellin' you Baby
I'm gettin' outta Piketown
And it's gettin' outta me 

Back when Johnny showed up 
In Eighteen Thirty-Five
The creek was full of fishes 
That fed the local tribe

This will be a fine place 
For us to settle down 
Johnny told his people 
And they called the place Piketown

Seventy years later
Turn of the century
Johnny's great great grandson
Opened up a factory

That produced automobiles
Or what passed for them then
By the time the wars were over
It employed ten thousand men 

I offer you this background 
So that we can set the stage
In the Midwest rust belt city 
Where I was born and raised 

But I'm gettin' outta Piketown
That you can believe
Yeah I'm gettin' outta Piketown
And it's gettin' outta me

At the end of the Eighties
They closed the factory
And everyone was wonderin' 
What'd become of our city

Many of my friends' dads 
Lost their jobs and moved away
And many more that stayed behind 
Hit the taverns every day 

It was about this time
I was in my senior year
My crew also took to drinkin'
Because that’s what you did here

We went out by the train tracks
Under the highway
In an old conversion van 
We put our booze away

I'd been shootin' Smirnoff 
When I stumbled to the barn 
Even in my condition 
What I saw raised my alarm

She had been my girlfriend
Still was some of the time
He was like a brother
And he should've known my mind

That I would try to kill him
For seein' what I saw
He left in an ambulance 
I was hauled off by the Law

I got outta Piketown Prison
Fifteen years plus time served
Can't say I regret it 
Bastard got what he deserved

Lookin' 'round the city now
Hard to reckon what I see
Condos on the Riverfront
Old plant's a microbrewery

So I'm gettin' outta Piketown
Now that I got a reprieve
Finally gettin' outta Piketown
Before Piketown kills me

April 30, 2017

Copyright © Andrew Jacob Jung | Year Posted 2017

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