The Good Ol’ Days

That damned, sad summer
The sun sat like an anvil
On our flat, tired town,
And we flocked to our churches
To pray to that tired old God
To send us His tears, His grace,
And we flocked to our bars
To damn Him and each other
As our fuses flared in inferno,
And as the sweat-streams pooled
At the bases of our tattooed backs,
We joked about global warming
In the hysteric tones of the doomed
And would have held each other
In our shared terror and rage
But for the damned, sad heat
Which made us hurt each other,
Tear each other apart,
Trying to pry that anvil
Off the dark bottoms of our souls.