Les Jones

East Tennessee > Maryville, TN Poem

So a couple of years ago I was trying to find information about downtown Maryville's "Now Town" re-development project in the '70s, and ran across this poem by "rocklion2000" from Knoxville, Tennessee. Found here.

I wished I lived in a pretty how town.
But my how town is no now town, and it's a matter of time before you find yourself getting around my town. It's dime box, it's paper machete, and it's restaurants around every corner.
Paper Jesus is everywhere. Paper Jesus is a slogan on a sign, a flyer on a wall. Words on the money, which read "In God We Trust." It's easily accessible to those who inherit the money in this found town. It's not a loud town.
It's only loud on a Friday night in the fall. A Friday night when the band is playing rah, rah, rah, and the school chants are running through the air, and the cars go honk, honk, honking down the backwater streets with teenage kids raising all kinds of hell on a liquored up evening that's doused with Budweiser, Natural Light the king of all beers and the football team is heading out to the field and it's just another chance for a state championship season and all you can hear is the constant sound of one bit, two bits, three bits a dollar, all for Maryville stand up and holler.
But listen.
It's no crowd town.
Walk down the streets. It's not hard. You stand in downtown and before you've known it, you've walked around my town. There's not a lot to see. Closed down Americana looking you in the eye and a few open businesses dedicated to tact. Go look in the barbershop. Go stare inside the boarded up bar. Peep into the oldest bank. Cover your hand over your eyes and look inside the old soup kitchen that used to be home to the paper Jesus that used to be home to the old record store that used to be home to the richest man in town. The richest man in town is long since dead, and now the richest man in town isn't even a man, but a corporation.
The richest man in town is known as a conglomerate.
But don't let that fool you. This is no pretty now town. It's already found that it's a pretty wound town.
Wound up so tight that you can't see past the bars of the first liquor store that opened this year. Wound so tight that there is no word for liberal in the conservative language. Wound so tight that railroad tracks run through the middle of town and the first black people to live across the tracks only happened five years ago, so this is far from being a pretty brown town.
Go ask the brown town. They'll tell you about my town. For them it's a frown town. People walking here and there with their noses all up in the air. It's a flag town in a small town. It's a rich man's town in a softball town. It's a fucked town.
It's my town.

For another artist's view of Maryville, see "City of Strange Delight" by The Shakers from their Songs Beneath the Lake album. Too bad it's from the pre-Internet, pre-iTunes era, so the song and lyrics aren't available on the Web. Sorry, Oscar, Rebecca, and Robert.