WHATEVER BECAME OF SAINT LOUIS?

Whatever became of Saint Louis, Missouri U.S.A.?
It’s not the same!
Her magic’s gone and all her beauty.
The Gate to the west is now all that is left; arching supreme.
There were once days
when the melodies of Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag
and the Pineapple too rang out of the Rose Room.
The moaning strains of Blues crept into our ears
but those were years when I wasn’t here.
Somehow describing the present of nightmares and gloom.
The city was named for the Sun King that gleemed
nevertheless deserted from the creative spirit it once had.
Now it’s hard to feel what those old days were like.
Back then came the sounds of Ragtime’s ivory choruses
but they have somehow disappeared, so sad and depressing.
We’ve forgotten our culture’s voices
of singing souls so touching and caressing.
Saint Louis has lost her dream!
If it wasn’t her music merry
we had Mark Twain and his yarns
of the Mississippi and Huckleberry
expressing the style of our unique way of living
with our wide-eyed naivety.
Friendly and social and with humility
we carried the weight of our community.
The days of Showboat and Handy’s songs
will stay in our America’s memories.
The days of our private thoughts
have faded for security’s aim for naught.
It truly does alarm me
to see what is now Avenue Delmar
Our value system has failed
Business has prevailed
Our culture is devoured by
Hollywood video games
with a tempation of abscence of thinking.
As well as our sense of virtue is terribly sinking.
The question is simply
is there truly no one to blame?
Today is an echo from the past
Reveling our liberated state of mind as we are
filling in the dots to a logical aim.
The question will always linger how this perdicament came.
Swallowing the magical atmosphere with her evening stars.
How long with her misery last?
Whatever became of sweet Saint Louis?
I often ponder with my face twisted with a grimace so aghast.
Perhaps it has fallen to a pack of greedy opportunists.