Is there space in this system for new rules
Can we find them hiding behind old books
Some dusty office at the top of a pole
Bleak ivory with a view well known
to all of us, who have got what we want
Whose privileged breath breathes deep of high times
stuffed with all those norms and expectations
litigating obligations ignored,
ignored; yet enforced by free tyranny
of the individual, of ones rights
without the weight of responsible
judgement. NO, there is no space up here, NO
not for straighter rules or greater fools
though latter too many, former too few;
These old rules are crooked, like hind quarters
dragged up the long torrid stair to the top
held up by lofty ideals, righteous… no
We seem in these high places to have forgot
whyfore we came to be here or how rotten
we are, that rot set into the books, the rules
the shelves, the pages, the walls, the food
Into the words, the system, the wages
paid to those shoring up this modern day
Babel. No well-intentioned roads lead here
No one will choose to walk these ugly stairs
No one will come, those lonely inventions
Freedom, liberty, the individual
Let them gather and groan in old walls
Mildewed bricks and misted rattling bones
Left here forgotten by those living below
Seen from on high in this ivory tower
This pale tower where no one lives, no one.