West 6

This is about a country road

Where neighbors thought otherwise

Clean exteriors were chosen

While inside the torture and pain

Removed all opportunity for peace

Or looking pretty

Far from it believe me

Ask the gentleman who ran away

To be found frozen at winter’s end

‘The Men of Atalissa’ is a story

of pain

of simplicity

of disregard

Advantage for those that knew

What atrocities exist

On the inside

For those who never tested the door

We live in a world that isn’t readily available

When our disdain becomes public knowledge

We live in a pretend dollhouse

With a lovely exterior

To veil the cracks scream deep inside.

So many men, so many lives

Treated as animals

With no ventilation

No windows to speak from

No access to any doorways

West 6 is a road that leads to a town

That hovers upon guilt and shame

Now leaves no one around

The church and the county store

Abandoned just like the lives of those men

That became the heart of this Iowan town

This is a story of human error

Another chapter in a society

Of disbelief exposed

When dignity is simply ignored.

How do we move on knowing we have stripped grown men

Of four decades of their own ability to live their lives?