I’m just a poor man who lives in a ratty apartment on top of a hill

I can barely pay my rent, I can barely pay my bills

Just another nobody in the good ol’ US of A

So I wrote this poem knowing that nobody cares what I have to say

But I thought I’d say it anyway:

Get a job!

Get a job!

That’s all you hear people say

If you can make a rich man richer

You get to live for another day

My city is a blight

The roads look like they have leprosy

The water from my tap is toxic

But they tell me that at least I’m free

But there’s too much pain in this world I live

And too many friends have died

Some from drug overdoses

Some from suicides

Because when you’re born poor in America

It’s like being born into a ditch

The ditch just keeps getting deeper and deeper

And it never seems to quit

And when you’re living poor in America

Your life is already such a bitch

But then they gotta go milk you for all your money

To offset their tax cuts for the rich

I was born into this world

With no say to how it was planned

I was born into this world

Not owning an inch of land

The Wealthy own the Means of Production

It’s called Private Property

While the poor we sell our labor

We gotta earn our poverty

Doctors are a class privilege

One that doesn’t belong to me

Oh, how I wish I lived in one

Of those overseas nations –

Where the health care is free!

Because my two hernias keep getting bigger

I can’t afford to get them fixed

And I’ve been deaf since 2001

But you know I’d be hearing if I were rich

And you know I’ve worked through sickness

And you know I’ve worked through pain

And as God is my witness

I’m now working while insane

My bosses pay me shit

They won’t give me a raise

While the price of everything keeps rising –

Not a dime can I save!

So I guess I’ll just go on eating

Beans and cornbread every day

So strike another item

Off your grocery list

While muttering to yourself:

“This is getting ridiculous!”

Going crazy, breaking point, too much stress

Heard another man just grabbed a semi-automatic

Shot 22 people to death

What kind of crazy world is this?

The best we can hope for

Or

So we’re taught

Where some are born to billions

And some are born to squat

And those who inherit billions

They didn’t burn one calorie to get

Are given total power and domination

Over those who have to work for every cent

Our Democracy is gone – we voted it away!

And we voted in an Oligarchy

Now rule by the rich is here to stay

You say you want your Democracy back?

I’m afraid it’s too damn late!

Like the gods of Mt. Olympus

They’ve conspired to seal our fate

Now their iron heel is crushing against our throats

And they’ll never let us escape!

So good-by to the Democracy

Of the common man

And greetings to the Spirit of Fascism

Now sweeping across the land

They Privatized the Prisons

They Militarized the Police

A baleful moon has risen

Something evil’s been unleashed

The poor are like a cornfield

The police a locust plague

After the locust swarm the cornfield

Half the poor are in a cage

They’ve crammed you like a slaughterhouse chicken

In this overcrowded cell

Now they farm you out for prison labor

You’re just a slave in this man-made hell

Yeah they took away your freedom

And tossed you like an animal in this cage

Now they’ll work you like a dray horse

Until you drop down in your grave

This shit couldn’t reek worse

If they opened up every grave in potter’s field

Fighting like savage beasts in a gladiator match

To give the guards a sick sadistic thrill

But this is the kind of system you get

When you let the billionaires rule

Take money away from our schools

In order to build these worlds so cruel

Manipulation of racial tensions

Is another way to keep the prisoners under control

You stabbed your rapist with a homemade shiv

Now you’re sitting on death row

Brutal beatings, degradation –

Another trip to the solitary hole!

It’s all been designed by the rich man

To crush the poor man’s soul

Because corporations are really Demons

And Satan is their bank

Steal everything away from the people

To build their machine guns, bombs, and tanks

Our Congress is just a House of Prostitution

The rich are the johns and they’re the whores

Better get ready to bury your loved ones

The rich just bought themselves another war

Celebration! Jubilation!

The champagne corks are popping!

Once again they fooled a nation!

Now the bombs are dropping!

Now the bombs are dropping

People fleeing, People screaming

Because when that flood of blood is flowing

A rich man’s bank account is growing

Protected by the American bourgeoisie

See them sitting on their big fat ass

Watching their favorite sitcoms –

They laugh and laugh and laugh

While our bombs are blowing families to pieces

Blowing children right in half

I see their opulent mansions

Built upon mountains towering so high

But when I peer closely at those mountains

I see millions of corpses stacked to the sky

And when I see their fabulous yachts a-sailing

I just sit down and cry

Yachts sailing on oceans of blood

Blood of all the poor who fought their wars and died

Now you’re sitting in the voting booth

Trying hard to decide who to choose

Who gets to screw you on behalf of the rich

But any way you choose you lose

What does our history teach?

That when money-is-free-speech

The rich will roar like lions

While the middle-class mice can barely squeak

When you have no money you have no voice

And if you’re poor you don’t count at all

You’re just screaming into a void

Feeling like you’re one inch tall

When the ballot box offers no solution

Talk on the streets will turn to revolution

When the working-class finally rises up in rage

They’ll light the fuse to that powder keg

But that day better come pretty damn fast

This House of Cards is about to collapse

We all better wake up and see the light

That Doomsday Clock is about to strike

Because this empire seeks world domination

It’s an insane game we don’t want to play

Driving us to a nuclear confrontation

But in an Oligarchy we have no say

So we turn back to our miserable lives

Trying to survive on our meager pay

Until that day when the sirens scream

The nuclear bombs are on their way

People shrieking, people praying,

Armageddon has finally come

Everyone cries they don’t wanna die

But there’s no place for them to run

Fearfully they look up to the sky

Paralyzed with dread

Here’s the final image to fry your eyes

A sun exploding above their heads