day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY FOUR

Johnstown Sleeps

Johnstown sleeps

under the giant beautiful ruins

of the machines of my Grandfather’s generation.

And on day they buried my Great Aunt Elanor

they tore my Grandfather’s favorite bar down

because Johnstown sleeps

under the weight of bad trade deals

and the even worse idea

the future belongs to coal.

Johnstown sleeps

under the haze of uncritical nostalgia

and evangelical theologies

preaching personal satisfaction

isn’t the nihilism of the soul,

because god’s chosen people

always live in the country.

And for every racist comment

on every race-baiting story

on WJAC’s Facebook page,

the guy who drives around

on MLK Day, with a noose

and a tribute to James Earl Ray

in the back of his pickup

enjoys a sense of belonging denied

to every young person with an idea,

whose daily lesson is they’ve got to get out.

Johnstown sleeps

in the memories of

my two-week summer vacations

at Grandma’s house,

since burned down by an arsonist,

and the greatness of all

this town’s lost humane architecture.

Because Johnstown sleeps.

Johnstown sleeps,

and it won’t wake up

because of every grandstanding politician

with an easy answer as to how to find the real problem

in Philadelphia, in Washington DC, at the border

and the primal need to be better than somebody, anybody.

Because when Johnstown sleeps

dreaming only of the fantasy of a perfect past

never of a pragmatic future,

Johnstown lies

forever in the restless sleep

of its pastoral nightmare.

                                                                 

  —Matthew Ussia