The West Is Dead

     As of approximately 1987

Trapped under the weight of ignorant fuckheads in SUVs with expensive fly rods, ATVs, snowmobiles, jet skis, dirt bikes, skis, snowshoes, personal water craft, mountain bikes and

fast food franchises in once-small towns.

Lost under countless thoughtless cigarette butts, beer bottles, fastfood boxes and

candy wrappers rotting in once-pristine snowbanks.

Hemmed in, cut off and run down by trophy homes, strip malls, recreation centers, bike paths, sidewalks, vanity fences and water-guzzling non-native landscaping

Flooded so that more people could arrive and have good water to waste,

flooded so that habitat could disappear and those animals...could just go away,

Filled so that the land could be developed,

Filled so that wetlands might be reclaimed

and those birds we never looked at, will not be seen again

Cut with sharp chainsaws, scraped by mighty bulldozers, dug by powerful cranes,

subdued and tied down that our families might safely come and live

Degraded by Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven, KFC, Burger King

and the smiley cheap-assed, knocked-off, use once and throw it away imports

that we demand to make our lives better

Punished by millions of thoughtless pleasure seeking units,

transformed into the exurbia from which they once provided escape;

trashed and abused, developed and sub-divided, leased, taxed,

tamed and made safe for people just like you and me

Warmed up by our exhausts, sullied by our mechanical and organic droppings,

ripped by the sick macho sounds of our great vehicles,

dammed and drilled, trailed and off-roaded,

microwave and cell phone-towered,

electrical-lined and gas distribution-routed

We wonder where what anyone ever saw here might have gone

and so we move on, to that Next Great Place.

Cleared and graded, denuded and staked, dug and poured, left to harden,

left to scattered weeds and cracking earth

left fit to have things carelessly thrown away on, and walked away from

Shamed and betrayed by the same crowd with the same shortsighted,

greedy development strategy used from coast-to-coast,

from pristine water-filtering meadow to oil-runoff-bearing asphalt,

from part of an ecosystem to packaged corporate strip mall.

Screaming in agony and sobbing with pain,

mere shadows of the perfection that Winter snow once brought,

struggling pathetically to rise once again with every Spring,

not a trace of the vast beautiful and clean empty openness that inspired the ancient ones,

just a million cars traveling past developments that weren't built to last,

places that turn the innocent child that was the West

into the diseased and dirty whore of our dreams

Then blindfolded, gang-raped, slammed to her knees,

dryly rearended while being kicked in the face.

Held without charges, convicted without trial, sentenced without wisdom,

locked up and guarded by sadists and forgotten by humans.

Offered, listed, speculated-upon, downright pimped and made available by faceless

well-groomed aliens wearing sunglasses and costly makeup,

in expensive climate-controlled cars behind closed and tinted windows,

buying zoning, cutting deals and getting in early,

coming away with more cash, moving on once again,

building out and getting over, getting theirs and getting out

And you can take it easy or you can take it hard,

but you are going to take it…for the rest of your lives.

And they will take what remains right up in your faces,

And then lock their gates behind them

and you will see them coming and they will watch you go,

safe behind their walls with lots of money and the finest views remaining