Posted 4:21 PM by Bonnie

While cleaning up around my computer area, and sorting through things to toss or keep I found an old- very old poem I had written during Erie, PA's bicentennial or some big doings. Don't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure it was the bicentennial. The mayor had asked people to submit poems about Erie for publication. I submitted this one, tongue in cheek, knowing it would not get published, but hey, someone had to be honest!

Erie, PA – The Mistake on the Lake

There’s glass on the sidewalk,
And rocks on it, too
Bottles and beer cans
Are scattered askew.

News papers float in
The dawns early breeze,
Pollutions so heavy
It makes me sneeze.

You can’t smell the roses,
Through Hammermill’s smoke
The odors in the air
Make everyone choke.

Lake Erie’s polluted,
The experts all say,
The fish are all packing
And moving away.

The folks on eleventh
By dear Keystone Brass
Say that it gives them a pain
In their ….. grass

That won’t grow
Through the foundry’s dust
They say it fair
They say it aint just.

So people of Erie
Mistake on the lake
Please clean up your act
For our city’s sake.

Let’s clean up our sidewalks
While there’s still some to spair
Put fish in the water
And birds in the air.

Let’s wake up each morning,
And take a deep breath,
Without fear that one day,
We’ll all choke to death!