Because We Can

This sensation
We say is the nation
Acting its destiny.
How like is it
To the smaller act which here we
 see,
The incomplete Devil paying a visit?

We know it is our
Fate to lack power —
Is this our excuse
That we are very small
Among demagogues whose job is to
 choose
The Few’s good or the Good of All?

Perhaps at home
Thought might roam
In rhyme’s paradigm
From native spite
In bed or drawing room to Real
 Time
Downloaded to us day and night.

Should then we ask
To whom the task?
There have been, we know,
Unflinching souls
Who’ve travelled far as thought can
 go:
Why is the world dying between the
 Poles?

Nobody today,
At least down our way,
Slaves in mines
Or starves or freezes,
Yet each Old Baron in his
 Saturnines,
In the Market’s name, does as he
 pleases.

Oh, come off it —
It’s only Profit,
One of our boasts,
Free Will for Man!
We bitumen the fields and flood the
coasts
Because we must because we can.