Bye-Bye Mr. Corporate Pride

(a retelling of Don McLean’s American Pie, and a commentary on today’s state of affairs.)

 

A long, long time ago

I can still remember

When my leaders seemed to give a damn.

And I knew if I gave my all

Then I might climb instead of fall;

And maybe I’d retire with a plan.

But February makes me shiver.

Soon newspapers won’t be delivered.

Budget cuts and layoffs.

401s won’t pay off.

I can’t remember if I cried

When I saw more colleagues cast aside.

I’ve just gone numb down deep inside

Because the dream has died.

 

And bye-bye, Mr. Corporate Pride.

Pushed my Chevy to the levy ‘cause the gas tank ran dry.

Now the middle class is drinking whiskey and rye,

Singing this’ll be the day that I die.

This’ll be the day that I die.

 

Once hippies sang of peace and love

But religious zealots shot that dove.

A great divide has taken hold.

Now do you believe in mind control?

Will a holy war save your mortal soul?

And does the book of Human Rights have loop holes?

Now you claim you’re a religious fool,

But your words are just a jester’s tool.

You’re actions don’t reveal

That you’re heart shaped words are real.

When your mentor joined the unemployed

And could no longer help you became annoyed;

You treat him just like a hemorrhoid

Now that the dream has died.

You started singin’

 

Bye-bye, Mr. Corporate Pride.

Pushed my Chevy to the levy ‘cause the gas tank ran dry.

Now the middle class is drinking whiskey and rye,

Singing this’ll be the day that I die.

This’ll be the day that I die.

 

Now for decades we’ve been riding high,

All reaching for that piece of pie;

We could smell it, touch it, taste it too.

We all tried to live like kings and queens

In castles well beyond our means,

And CEOs grew fat on me and you.

Oh, but while we all were looking down

Employers stole our fragile crowns.

Foreclosures took our homes

‘Cause we couldn’t pay our loans.

And while board rooms called for gains “today”

They let tomorrow slip away;

Now we’re the ones who have to pay

And say the dream has died.

 

Bye-bye, Mr. Corporate Pride.

Pushed my Chevy to the levy ‘cause the gas tank ran dry.

Now the middle class is drinking whiskey and rye,

Singing this’ll be the day that I die.

This’ll be the day that I die.

 

Deflected, dejected, insurance claims rejected

Health care costs are frequently inflected

Their rising and infections’ spreading fast.

We’re landing flat on our backs

As these bail-outs call for some ready cash

But the bankers, on the sidelines keep their stash.

While a stimulus is up for votes

We find ourselves in tattered coats

That can’t keep out the cold

As our lives are bought and sold.

As the workers try to get our yield,

The lenders still refuse to deal

And nothing is left for us to steal

And now the dream has died.

We are singin’

 

Bye-bye, Mr. Corporate Pride.

Pushed my Chevy to the levy ‘cause the gas tank ran dry.

Now the middle class is drinking whiskey and rye,

Singing this’ll be the day that I die.

This’ll be the day that I die.

 

Oh, and pre-retirees are in last place

A working group that’s lost in space

With no time left to start again.

So come on, Barrack be nimble, Barrack be quick.

The economy is deathly sick

And we can’t go on; we need this thing to end.

Despite Bin Laden and his trail

We knew this country could prevail;

And then came corporate Hell.

It’s worse than terror’s spell.

When flames outshined the morning sun

A brand new era had begun;

But who knew Bin Laden could be outdone?

And now, the dream has died.

Now he’s singing

 

Bye-bye, Mr. Corporate Pride.

Pushed my Chevy to the levy ‘cause the gas tank ran dry.

Now the middle class is drinking whiskey and rye,

Singing this’ll be the day that I die.

This’ll be the day that I die.

 

I went out for a bite to eat

From the local diner, down the street,

Looking forward to a slice of apple pie;

But the place was dark and empty.

I should’ve known they couldn’t stay.

When the plant shut down the town began to die.

The other shops had closed as well.

No one to buy, now no one to sell.

It’s just the way of business;

Trim some jobs, outsource the rest.

And the churches, mosques and temples, too,

Each try to tell us what to do,

But who can say just what is true

Now that the dream has died?

Now we’re singin’

 

Bye-bye Mr. Corporate Pride

Pushed my Chevy to the levy ‘cause the gas tank ran dry.

The middle class is drinking whiskey and rye

Singing this’ll be the day that I die.

This’ll be the day that I die.

 

We’re all singin’

 

Bye-bye Mr. Corporate Pride.

Pushed my Chevy to the levy ‘cause the gas tank ran dry.

The middle class is drinking whiskey and rye

Singing this’ll be the day that I die.

 

Strawman

See you here, this empty carcass,  
Void of all except the bones, 

The shell exposed has dulled the spark of 
Madness as the corpse atones 
For all the suffering he gave us 
All the agony he’d sown 
Through savage pride and wretched acts of 
Greed that tore us from our homes. 

And so we gutted him in darkness, 
Found his heart as hard as stone, 
And chiseled it to bear the mark of 
Brotherhood he’d never known. 

Now all take heed the power forged as 
One above all others shone; 
Like wildfire he soon engorged us. 
Like firemen we save our own.

Politics

Creeping in like a snake, seeping in for the sake 

of maneuvering fate and obsessing
over trivial things, over casual flings 

over tightening strings -- over dressing

Oozing in like dark sludge out of drains left unplugged
letting budgets begrudge who needs feeding
Seeking rite over right over sight in the night 

while our heroes, our white knights lie bleeding

Undermining resistance, redefining assistance 

superficial existence impending
and progression's rejected deflected infected 

by some bureaucrat thief's under-spending

Rendered blind deaf and dumb yet sublime with aplomb
Look, our leaders are gunning for glory

Relativity's a ruse
Space and time are confused
Laws of physics abused

End of story

What Can You Do?

What can you do when you can do nothing? When the nothingness surrounds you until it drowns you in a well of wasted thoughts and wasted dreams and wasted chances never seen, when never becomes forever becomes whatever you have or had or could ever possibly hope to achieve   or believe--   Bold deceiver, this nothing.

Downsizing

It starts at the summit when finances plummet
       and bosses toss ballast away

Your company pride takes a sharp, sudden slide
       as a lifetime of work loses sway
Your abdomen churns as your loyalty's spurned
       yes, you come to accept it’s one-way

You’d settled in cozy and thought you were rosy
       because you’ve worked hard night and day

But you’re no more and no less than all of the rest
       so you’ve no greater hope you can stay

You answer to rumors with a bleak sense of humor
       then close your eyes tightly to pray

But the air blows in colder …
       there’s a tap on your shoulder …
              Your position’s no longer in play.

They give you a box,
       take the keys for your locks
               and the past twenty years fade to gray…

 

Maybe Truth Skips a Generation

Maybe truth skips a generation, generating lies to throw the world askew

 

 just a little

just enough to tilt the machine and let us play for free for a while, while we clutch tightly to that get-out-of-jail-free card, that ‘hands off! it ain’t me!’ card that throws accountability out the window into the little litter-strewn park below where the children are running in circles circulating ‘it’ by tagging one another one by one until no one really is anymore anyway

 

and does it even matter

 

when matter itself is nothing more than tiny mindless its running in circles circulating chaos?

In the Silence of a Crowded Room

In the silence of a crowded room at the café down the stairs,
my work abandoned at my desk, I joined my colleagues there
to find the truth behind the talk and watch events unfold
that never could have been believed from what we’d just been told;
Yet there it was, both live and real, on a screen too large to lie,
a scene that left us cold with shock and numbly asking “why?”

In the silence of a crowded room we watched the towers fall

 

crumbling

 

under plumes of smoke.

 

A dark and hollow wall

 

Soon spread itself across this land from sea to shining sea

shrouding us in fear and grief for Lady Liberty.

Yet like a beacon through the blight she bravely held her ground

reminding us to see that we will not be taken down.

 

In the silence of a crowded room I watched those gathered near

and saw each bore a common wound, each face so like a mirror.

We stood united with our pain as we followed terror’s trail.

Together now we share the scars; and together, we’ll prevail.

 

 

 

*from “Somewhere on the Edge of Words,” DM Kraft, c 2001