White Picket Fence

These are the nightmares I hold in my hand

And sprinkle like ashes among the elite

From towers, the titans have forsworn the land

Which once was as rough as the driest of peat

We toiled and toppled their towers with gardens

And forests that flourished and climbed to the clouds

Then ballroom masks wore till the floor was re-hardened

From dancing and stomping and laying dead down

Then we built new towers from gold-covered farthings

And remade our image in the image of yore

And set slaves to carving and sewing and starving

And remade their image in the one we adored

Then revolution, the people were massing

And we on our couches called down in disdain,

"Who are you to be wond'ring and wishing and asking

For fairness. Your wages—our profits—are plain?

"Who are you to build gardens and topple down towers

And climb for your own selfish motives and greed?

We give you reason and we give you hours,

So don't talk of justice, it's us that you need!"

And with that the people stopped trying to climb

And thought for a moment 'bout what they should do

Then finally one of them held up a sign

And others soon followed; it's message, "Screw you."

So here is the moral, my children of ages,

If ever a lesson is learned here at all:

Some cycles just circle and spin 'round in stages

But towers are cages and they too may fall.