is achieved on the broken backs
of unknown men who laid the tracks
for trains to run and planes to fly
by working hard until we die
for nothing but the clothes we own
and grub we eat always alone.
Sure everyone can name the man
or men who came up with the plan,
but who knows us who work behind
those men to fruify their mind,
who ache and pain and slave away
through wintry night and boiling day?
And you comfortable in your home,
do you ever let your mind roam
to thoughts of Jim or John or I
who built the world you sell and buy
and take for granted all the time?
Do you reflect upon the grime
and grease and dirt and sweat and blood,
the grave disease and caked on mud
we slogged through in our forlorn life?
Do you know how we all were rife
with forsaken despair, how we
had somehow lost our shot to be
one more of you without a chance
to demonstrate our compliance
to systems we were withheld from
for being different, being dumb,
foreign, disliked, for being poor
or being born outside the door
of closely guarded social rungs
held up by money-loving tongues
desperate to hold on to their slight
advantage over oúr might ?
And so to fuel their endless greed
and hollow ideals they still need
to toss aside the values they
claim cannot just be tossed away,
so you and they will force my kind
to always lag one step behind
so you can have your great excuse
to set us up for your abuse,
the truth of which you won’t address
just to have your precious progress.