Letter to the Editor: Poem "Invisible Shackles"

Invisible Shackles

By Marilyn Parman

Our economy and its polarity
Viewed at the top with hilarity
No health care without money
Viewed by med business as so funny
The homeless are only human waste
As seen by the elite with oh so much taste
Our democracy is nothing but folklore
As disguised by the giant corporate whore
This is our real life yoke
Believe me, it is no joke
These are our elements of shackles
The invisible shackles

You say, “Go live abroad.
We, the elite will applaud
But we cannot live abroad without pay
This, the trade agreements do all say
We must have so much money
To live abroad in land of milk and honey
You elite are the monkeys — hand caught in jar
Don’t want to let go of cookies is who you are
The pyramid will topple before your eyes
As a result of oh — so many lies
You think that we are those whom you outfox
As the pyramid implodes you too will be in our box
This is the real life yoke
Believe me, it is no joke
These are our elements of shackles
The invisible shackles

Fascism by definition — is who we really are
Corporations to whom leaders owe their soul so far
As laws of science and economics apply
That which goes up does not stay in the sky
Instead, these things crash to the ground
Then chaos throughout society will abound
Society must think as a team
Not me only as a mean
To higher economic status
Or it will be an impossible lattice
There is no honor to control
To strive to do so ends in a black hole
This is our real life yoke
Believe me, it is no joke
These are our elements of shackles
The invisible shackles

To realize a solution
To this social pollution
Will require a clear head
Rise up now before you’re dead
And insist on new direction
In the next upcoming election
Start a petition to banish the electoral
As this is the reason for the democracy pictorial
Then shed lobbyists who keep our leaders in a box
They are our new rule as they are clever like a fox
We are kept by them — gagged and bound
While they eternally run us aground
As the pyramid crumbles it becomes their yoke
Their greed becomes their ruin and on them will be the joke
The wannabe elites are elite no longer
And the bourgeois will be a lot stronger
Only then will we be relieved of our shackles
The invisible shackles