Microsoft Word - Snedeker_poem.doc


Copyright © 2010 by George Snedeker and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 

PROGRESS 

George Snedeker 

 

BILL OF SALE 

 

Mack trucks racing by on Route 130,  

Three maple trees in the front yard, 

A broken swing, 

A dry well, 

The house, and the dog’s yard, 

The barn, 

Four chicken coops no longer in use, 

Three apple trees, 

A wheelbarrow bridge into the woods, 

Several piles of broken bottles . . . 

 

THE MIDDLESEX COUNTY WORKHOUSE 

 

The old Middlesex County Workhouse  

is now a juvenile center.  

I’m not sure  

what they call it today.  

When I was growing up  



Copyright © 2010 by George Snedeker and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 

it was where men served 30-90 days  

for drunk and disorderly conduct  

or other public order offences.  

 

It was located right across the highway  

from our small farm,  

now a condo development called “Renaissance.”   

 

Real-estate speculators  

bought up the whole area  

for a projected industrial park  

which was never built.  

 

I guess they did not know about  

the plans for the  

deindustrialization of America.  

 

My parents did not want to sell  

the farm  

but they didn’t want  

to be surrounded  

by smokestack industries  

either,  



Copyright © 2010 by George Snedeker and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 

so they signed their names  

to the bill of sale.  

 

So much for what used to be called  

progress in America.  

 

 
 
PROGRESS 
 
I remember the two  
well-dressed men 
who knocked at the door. 
 
They said that they were  
interested in  
buying our farm. 
 
My father laughed and said,  
“We don’t want to sell 
the farm.”  
 
But one of the men responded, 
“If you don’t sell,  
you’ll be  
surrounded by  
factories. 
Everyone around here  
has sold. 
 
We’re going 
to build  
an industrial park.  
 
If you don’t sell, 
you’ll be  
standing in the way 
of progress.”  
 

 



Copyright © 2010 by George Snedeker and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 

RENAISSANCE 
 
The sign says  
“Renaissance,” 
but the rebirth  
of what?  
 
Rows of condos  
had been 
thrown up 
for people  
on the road  
to success!  
 
The old Middlesex County Workhouse  
Is still 
on the other side 
of the highway, 
but now it’s a  
Juvenile Center. 
 
They promised  
an industrial park 
would be built. 
That’s how they got 
my parents to sell 
their four-acre farm. 
 
But somehow 
the factories 
never got built. 
Only  
the condos. 
 

 

AIR RAIDS 

While we were still living  

on the farm,  

cars would pull to the side  

of the highway  



Copyright © 2010 by George Snedeker and Cultural Logic, ISSN 1097-3087 

as the air raid sirens  

went off.  

 

I’m not sure  

what the inmates in the Middlesex County Workhouse  

did during air raids.  

 

When we were at school,  

we had to crawl  

under our desks  

as if this would save us 

from an attack.  

 

Of course,  

the real purpose for all of this  

was to create a sense that  

there really was  

something to fear  

and it was not real-estate speculators,  

but Communism.