Macon, GA

If you walked the streets of downtown now,

you might turn your nose. The hollow bones

of decrepit, brick buildings are crumbling –

serving only as canvases for graffiti and blazing

monuments for pyromaniacs. They don’t lock

the doors nor wash off the spray-painted penises anymore.

The homeless, deranged, begging for a savior that doesn’t

exist, stumble and drag along the alleyways. Hungry, gray faces

hollow, muttering under their breaths, incantations or curses.

Your pace would quicken, trying your best not to stare - shielding

your children from the honest to God truth of a system built to fail.

They’ve been building the interstate right over town for years now,

and for years to come. A passerby city, a stop to use the bathroom,

get some gas and get out, it’s dangerous at night. Reduced

to disrepair and negligence, you never saw its glory.

White flight plagued Macon, where integration ushered

the blight of a beloved city. They ran, and never came back.

Nostalgia grips and wanes the heart of Georgia,

even the light lush pinks of cherry blossoms hesitate

their annual bloom. The whine of funky blues, slow jazz and soul

don’t echo down the worn, brick-laced, streets anymore.

Lost wafts of fresh biscuits and fried delicacies rot into the acrid air.