There is a symmetry to war, state
against state, brother against brother,
like Siamese twins joined
headlong, thrashing and flailing
with one impassioned heart
for the right to be.

And still the world turns, and still
the hearts of defeated men beat strong
with savage hopes for a lost generation,
and the hearts of victors, once blinded
by angst and ire, observe the failings
of their triumph, see through old lies
that urged them unto death or death,
and old traditions, caked in blood,
are refashioned and reborn like bell-
bottomed denim, and still the world turns.

How was it, in that desperate hour,
for a man born to cotton fields,
born unto the yoke, born beneath the whip,
born unto the mercy of his masters,
how was it to be borne up to see the white
cotton flag raised in supplication, to see
old masters wavering in ploughed furrows,
like cotton billowed by a Northern squall?

Was there, in that desperate hour, a scream
from the past, "Beware, the Templars!"
as old chains were cast off, and melted
to forge chains anew, and the masters
of old were replaced by new masters
of state, and old fashions like slavery
replaced with chains worn by gangs over
bell-bottomed denim?

As long as men are masters of men,
Man will abuse his fellow man;
Profiteers will sup the fruits
of free labor, honest business
will decline, and prisons burgeon
as the poor become poorer, and
the poorest are inducted into
the perfect symmetry of an
imperfect finite state machine,
until the next uprising.