Tennessee - Pyrrhon

They took more than time from you

Down in Tennessee

Where the land rolls rusted

And kudzu strangles the trees in green

Deformed like you by medicinal bonds

Blameless but shrouded in shame

They gave you more than bruises

Down in Tennessee

Where the mountains loom lumpen

Some storm-cursed earthen sea

Root-sewn to your bed

Where sweat stained wood and stone

Your shrinks sentenced you to labor in the loam

Tending the falsehoods you’d carry back home

They held you down

And peeled ripelike back

The curl-crested crown of a child

Planted their alien seeds

Cruel furrows in trusting clay

And we blessed those bastards

For the nostrums they sold us

The prayers they passed off as your cure

Your work raised you from that riverbank hell

Where out of love we damned you to dwell

Take pride in the scars they carved in you

For in their depths, a secret strength grew

Unbowed it abides inside

As you forge your faraway life

That strange iron guide you dragged up

From beneath the hills down in Tennessee

Where the land rolls rusted

And kudzu strangles the trees in green