by Edward Peter Bombaro

Created on: February 08, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-

I've watched as your industry has come and gone,

You gave them nothing in return,

I've seen as your housing authority has condemned and demolished

Of which you have done nothing since for either the better or the worse,

I've seen your homeless without purpose,

Living in their own refuse

As the revitalizers of the city attempt to

Clean up the filth in which they rest.

I've stood on your subway platforms

And I've watched your many express trains fly by

All while reading the insults and tagging that cover your walls,

I've walked your streets to have have seen your Police

Billy clubbing the outstanding convicts standing outside your school on Snyder Ave,

I've watched as you have let your upstanding busnesmen,

Strawbridge & Clothier, Wanamaker,

Fade and be covered by the conglomerates which will not concede,

Your abandoned coal shutes and cargo piers

Festering upon your river's shoreline,

The passing of your naval shipyard into the hands of

The foreign businessmen who allow it to change and change,

I've never seen you bleed as bad

As your violence has conquered your good,

I've never seen you need as bad

Since your leaders've stuffed their pockets

While the city convulses in such great need.

The proud, the few who've stayed

Continue to call this city home

And have nothing bad to say about her,

Those who've lived and will die there,

Those who've lived and have died there,

Those who've left and come back

And'll probably never leave again,

Hungry for the food at the Reading,

Precious are the jewels on the Row,

Rocky stands at the foot of his museum's stair,

But the city's not kind enough to place him where he'd belong,

Inside Frankilin is Baldwin's masterpiece, X-60000,

At the east end of Market Street stands Indepedence Hall,

Where our fore-bearers of freedom created freedom for us all,

Bill stands atop of city hall,

Watching the land granted to him by a debt of the king,

Bill stands pondering the future of this place,

This city of brotherly love,

He has seen everything that stands in her way,

May God bless this place,

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-

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