Dissent Rows

Dissent Rows

Fallow as furrows in a dust bowl field.
Rocks are the only crop harvesting.
The flint wants to spark, the tinder is dry,
But the dust is heavy, wood won’t light.

Little grey devils swirl in the sun,
Hungry at breakfast, when day is done.
Once there was thunder, once there was rain,
Once there were stalks to turn under again.

But the ground is dead and the ground is dry,
The flint wants to spark but the wood won’t light.
Green wants to grow but the sun can’t cry,
No creeks in their ditches, no light in our eyes.

Cities gone silent except for the mad,
Dancing on Wall Street, dance of the dead,
Once mighty high and vaunted old halls,
Deaf to the people, damning us all.

Tanks in the streets, blood is there, too
No time for the fine wine of life for we few.
The Kings upending their poisonous cups,
Washing the world in death in their sup.

But the good old judge is dead, there she lies,
Something of her spirit still flies between sighs,
Green wants to grow but oil wells won’t still,
Lord, send us something to soothe all these ills.

I’m just ‘bout bent to the will of old gods
Calling for calves, and for dowsing rods,
If John Barleycorn would call me today,
I’d pick up the phone and beg him to stay.

Shadows that pass over homes and our fields,
Are distant and miserly in their small yields,
No blood on the altar, no blood on the plough,
No blood in my heart, done beaten for now.

The plague that now rules all over this land,
The barefaced and crazed each showing their hands,
The deck that is stacked, each card bears a mark,
Done folded for now, there’s no Queen of Hearts.

But the hand is dead and the eyes are dry,
They’re killing us slow in a cauldron of lies,
The lips want to speak, they’ve stitched us up tight
But one day, we promise, we’ll rise, oh we’ll rise.
The lips want to speak, they’ve stitched us up tight
But one day, we promise, we’ll rise, how we’ll rise.

– D.W., 2020