What have you sold?
Was it worth its weight in gold?
A votive lit for fifty cents,
A flame announcing you repent;
To beg your saint to intercede
To provide your worldly needs.
Was that your body up for sale;
What would you trade for the Holy Grail?
Sell a kidney or a lung,
Sell your lap top and your phone.
Sell the home, enslave the kids,
Offer all to the highest bid.
Simonize your sale tonight,
In the sun it shines bright;
Let the buyer drive the fraud,
After all, you're a demigod.
Have you sold your secret soul,
Your joie de vivre,
The living truth
For make-believe?
Sell it all in a sidewalk sale,
Sell your house, sell every nail;
Every brick and piece of wood,
The price you get is understood,
To get as much as one could.
We make the deal for personal gain,
Trangress against the light;
Stand in the shadow of the shadow
Of the master of the mill.
Add to coffers, sell off principles,
Buy a judge, sell a nation,
It's a photo-op donation.
Betray an ally, sell a friend,
Exploit the lonely til their end.
Abuse your office, hire a niece,
Family fortunes will increase.
Pander to hypocrisy - here it's called democracy.
These are not our personal sins,
But crimes against society,
Crimes against life.
Look upon our deadly works,
Ozymandias warned we should.
Ozymandias: Poem by Shelley (1818).