To sit in a suit
Trimmed and pressed
By the hands of those
You would never get to know
And to read your papers
That don’t really make sense
And evaluate oddities
That you probably should know.

To fix yourself a drink
And give yourself a smoke
When problems arise
That can’t be solved
By your secretarial mistress
Or her typing skills.

To eye your lower men
And see their grimaced faces
Struggling to serve your powers
To feed their families
While you fatten yours
With the fruits of their labor.

To notice the holes
The dents in your wealth
And to locate your peers
And congregate for discussion
Over whose head to roll
For your own mistakes
And over whose piece of bread
Will be taken away.

To find that man
A fine yet lacking man
With a mother at home
And a family to feed
With a bill to pay
And a debt to owe
That simple young man
With a heart of gold
But a brain of lead
That weights and drags
Your own wealth down.

And to say to that man
Whose life you’ve not known:
“You’ll go without your piece of bread
And your children will know
That you won’t bring home
The things that your wife married you for
And you’ll never be whole
And never rise up
But clear your desk
And we’ll send you your check
It’s nothing personal:
It’s just business.”

To watch as he leaves
With his lead head limp
As he asks himself why
He must starve and deprive
The only things he’s loved
From their piece of bread
For his own carelessness;
His own foolish head.

To gorge yourself
On this extra bread
And to never think twice
Of that poor young man
Or the meals he won’t see
And the children he can’t feed.

And to lay your head down
On your crisp linen sheets
And the end of the day
Of crushing and burning
While your lead-headed man
Weights himself down
From a rope you weaved
When you left him without
His piece of bread.