Pretty Seedy

Pretty Seedy

Honey, it’s always been that way—

Just ask Lorna Anderson & her lovers

Down there south of Emporia—

Along the lonely Cottonwood River

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Bird Bridge creaking & groaning—

In the spectral Kansas moonlight

Our jaded homicidal homeland—

Tallgrass Prairie Peyton Place town

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Tie me up in a hammock, baby—

It’s Night of the Iguana time for me

Let Ava Gardner sing gentle lullabies—

It’s been a bad weekend for Jesus & me

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Richard Burton defrocked like me—

I done shoved my wife off the Bridge

Empty bottle of champagne—

Up the side of her pretty little head

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Bloody love there on Bird Bridge—

All because I fell in love with Lorna

But so did half the men in Emporia—

The mayor, bankers, real estate agents

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Lorna was a Slut for Jesus dontchaknow—

My pretty Grace Lutheran Church secretary

“Next?” she’d say at those parties—

A long line waiting outside the bedroom

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“Oh Lordy, Lordy!!!” how they came—

Especially all those rich Methodist men

Those Presbyterians liked her too—

But it was the Lutherans who went cuckoo

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I had my own faithful Flock of Fuckers—

Stuffing my coffers with lotsa big bucks

I had Big Dreams about Elmer Gantry—

Even Jimmy Swaggart fame & fortune

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I was gonna have my own swanky—

Charismatic Christian College in town

Just like Oral Roberts in Oklahoma—

I could just feel the filthy lucre flow!!!

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I’d have my very own Prayer Tower—

There on Sixth and Commercial!!

And every weekend on Saturday night—

We’d drag Main St. Just For Jesus!!!

[It has gotten pretty seedy and in spite of 

having a University it definitely looks down 

at the heel.  Maybe it always looked that way 

and I'm just seeing it though more jaded eyes 

but I don't think so.]