Sleeping masters roused to burning homes from beds

Steeping toddlers plucked from their watery deaths

Ribbons, plaques and soft-soap are the ephemeral rewards

Paid to the slaves whose selfless acts accord



A higher value to their masters

These parting gifts, bolt pistols

Console the rest, the remainder



Too bad the tribute's paid to lives that relegate these thrones

To lives spent valuing the runners-up, are known

Are to be neither fleeting nor desirable, but nothing surprises me these days

I just sit and watch the boxcars roll by and wait



Patient

Unattended

So patient

So unattended



A package under

A terminal bench and

A short fuse to scatter

Steady hands if I forget to remember



That better lives have

Been lived in

The margins and

Locked in the prisons



And lost on the gallows

Than have ever been enshrined in palaces



It's not your fault

There's nothing you can do

It's just the way it is

There's nothing we can do