EXECUTIVES

They put me in school to learn to sit still The best training for working the line Shaping a boy into a component For the wars, the mills or the mines Submission ground in for generations Each little freedom paid for in blood While executives dream of their pet robots And plan their escape to Mars The overseer in his glass tower Rules by layoffs instead of whips Cancers his workers to avoid paying pensions Indentures to mortgages to work us to death Submission ground in for generations Each little freedom paid for in blood While executives dream of their pet robots And plan their escape to Mars Great-Grandfather died share-cropping Grandmother died in the mills Father died in the trenches Defending our freedom to live The clank and whine of machinery Follows me into my sleep Where it joins the screams over centuries Of peasants, of slaves, of human machines Submission ground in for generations Each little freedom paid for in blood While executives dream of their pet robots And plan their escape to Mars Executives dream of only pet robots While they plan their escape to Mars