Eighteen

Hands that are richer,
End to be clean,
Hands with ambition,
And the hands of greed.
The hands that were spoiled,
The hands that don’t know,
How difficult this life is,
When you face it alone.

My hands they are poorer,
They have seen a struggle,
They have held a few issues,
With the misgivings they did juggle,
Becoming calloused of course,
While they bled unto the shovel,
That I sure enough did use,
As to clear my life of trouble.

And our hands never touch,
For my hands are too rough,
You see, the blemish of my weal,
is judged, and doesn’t appeal.
Like I’ve fallen to my face,
In the midst of a crowd,
Or standing alongside myself,
though the sun has been down.

Like my shadow is all I see,
Though my vision has never before been fouled,
Can’t you feel my pockets aren’t deep,
Or was it you who kept to yourself
Even though hard-work fashions,
Quite a well taut individual,
It is those who know not,
That prosper, forbearing such hurdles.

And with your snout directed at the clouds,
Like a swine in the sludge,
How you look down upon those,
Still dry-bellied with fortune—yet hast been begrudged.
And now like a mirror I am looking,
As though I am not, if truth been told, direct
But the one looking down,
Translating such an affluent dialect—
Speaking of greenback and wherewithal,
and the all that it takes to be in such pockets,
Not to be matter-of-factly, of what it took to get here,
But the stock of forefathers and defunct topics.