From shallow graves

We are sojourners in this foreign state
One broken by mistrust, selfishness and greed
And hate
We are the soldiers never trained for war
Marshaled to defend the disenfranchised &
Forgotten poor

We hoist no flag but share a common hope
The first in line be hoisted by their own
Myopic Rope
Our compatriots enjoy a common tongue
“No parasan” is our battle cry, “We shall overcome”,
Our song

I fear we’re at the mouth of an infernal pipe
For forty years it’s waited to devour our hope, the time
Now ripe
But we must not be wooed into the rancid flow
Before plotting our return to what we love
And know

They’ll think us dead beneath autumnal sheets
Not knowing that beneath the pallid skin a heart
Still beats
But we’ll not play the corpse that for this fight abstained
We will not give a mile that some mean inch
Be gained

While we may see our freedoms auctioned off for oil and gas
We’ll take the muck much sooner than their blood
Stained brass
And though they press us hard till we are good as slaves
We will resist until we rise up from our
Shallow graves