All Those Places

All Those Places

...once thought of as somewhere.

This will be a silly poem.
But sometimes all you need
is just a few simple words
not too self-conscious,
and not at all concerned
about who won't like them.

So here it goes,
this is my ode
to Wheeling, West Virginia,
to Ashland, Kentucky,
to Portsmouth, Ohio,
to Gary, Indiana,
and to all of those places
once thought of as somewhere,
but are now an afterthought
except by those souls who
frequent the old McDonald's
getting to know the characters
from the local cast of life,
and lend an ear listening
to the sad soliloquies
of the forgotten.

---

Somewhere,
something incredible is waiting to be known.
~ Sharon Begley