You are the boom, the bubble and the bust Extrordinary largesse of a selfish generation Peering with distasteful lust at us Who are the soil and seed of indignation. You would not give your neighbors children A chance to climb the ladders that you tip Turn up the gas and make the pot a cauldron While beads of bitter words roll off your lips. Because you built the staircase we must climb Because you hold the keys we must obey We know not what intentions here maligned Have laid the traps in which we kneel and pray.
Our heroes now ignored, even by us, I'm sure are shouting hoarse at your steel walls While you repose at grassy country clubs And there, filling your glass and painting halls Are we, your chosen few, your brilliant poor With rich degrees and always deferent glance To show you, as we open up the door To the penthouse you reserved much in advance How grateful we are for a job, don't be afraid - We aren't so bitter that we cannot bow Or ask to take your bags, pleased do be swayed By our mock sympathy for all your gout.
You smudge, you stain, you great indiginity Who sold us debt and now decries our woes We'll let you kick us, silent, in the streets Yet there is something that you ought to know: The hate I bear for you has no sunset. I'll kiss your feet and wear your suit today But soon you too will by sweet death be met And as Dylan said, I'll spit upon your grave.
I see you now, and I am fooled no longer. There's no rat race, no ceiling anymore You are the cattle prod, we are the slaughter, But rich silence this poor soul cannot afford. You own me, and my enemies and my friends With loans and cards for BA's that you said Would be our sole salvation in the end - But somehow it just made you rich instead.
I will say this once, thought it should be sung Through every bar and shelter where we crouch In every cold and miserable slum Where we lived when you finally priced us out: All respect we show is rooted in despair This tounge much bitten will speak free at last And had we bravery, we'd not have stared With terror as our peaceful marched you gassed. Here, survival is our goal, but I hold hope That when these years of grovelling are through We'll still have anger in our veins, if so - We might escape the curse of being you.
~CRH April 2012
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