Manifesto

How can they say that?
How can those priests and thinkers say
it’s a perfect world?

Where was I when they were saying that?
Sandblasting a sewer pipe
in South Beloit, Illinois, that’s where,
someplace between showing up and going home
but definitely nowhere
good enough for me or anybody else.

I don’t need to read a book about it.

I’ll tell you what’s perfect:
parts and labor
on one day of getting older
stack up to exactly a day’s wage,
no matter what it is.

And if it ever costs more than what I got to be here,
well I ain’t paying it,
cuz it’s a perfect world
and I ain’t done nothing wrong.