Philosophical Flim-Flam

So when I woke the sandman
I realized the truth
of the American Dream,
which had been strangled
by the controlling interests
of those attempting to forge
the New World, bound by a
vow to the Economics of Caste -
those able to settle & decide
and those who would have
to do the actual work.

When these trends blended, you
had myths like Pocahontas
and Abe Lincoln, or outcasts
like the John Adams who
struggled to keep us from the
inevitable road to Civil War.

***

Well, John Henry was born
with big hands. John Henry
had a strong back. John Henry
knew how to swing a hammer
and so John Henry took on
the entire railroad line.

Why'd he do it? Participate
in a contest that left him dead?

I think he was trying
to make a point, and in the process
became the first martyr to the cause.

***

I don't have much use
for philosophies that talk
about man as if he were a theory,
because man lives in the real world,
and needs ideas that are actually
relevant to the way he lives.

He doesn't need someone talking
about why someone does something,
but rather why he ought to do it,
a good enough reason to rise
and rise again, until lambs
become lions, because we all
need to fight; it's the law
of the jungle, fight for your right
or be left behind.

Call me a flim-flam man,
unable to support anything
well enough to make a difference,
and so in that way I'm just like
everyone else after all,
bustling along and passing the time,
pretending like I am going
to move the world by the sweat
of my brow and the fret beneath it.

Say you want a revolution?
Well, don't you know,
we don't want to change the world.