Again the Beguine

by Perry L. Powell

The rich grow fat on special pleading.
The poor in their gutters beg and cry foul.
The greater community sprawls bleeding
and even Rousseau breaks his social vow.

Wall Street, they say, is just our other street,
though Main Street is where we think we live.
Still those with much suck hardest at the teat
while those with very least are asked to give.

It's one thing and then it is another
when greed is all we really think to value.
We're all on board when upper decks smother,
but do you care when it's the poor we screw?

Does howling crisis always make the king?
Or the king himself construct the crisis?
Again the same players start the same beguine
and again those ancient snakes start to hiss.

Tell your frightened children not to worry--
Madame Defarge remembers how to knit.
Only the fortunate need leave in a hurry
and none are that fortunate, don't we know it?