Fool’s Gold.

When did all the folksingers
leave Washington Square?
I went a little while ago
but just saw students there
slaving with their books,
heads bowed with burdened looks
and as I hummed along to Dylan,
I noticed corporate crooks
armed with lies about the future
that it wasn’t in our hands
and that we’d have to trample those below
to stay atop this mighty land
better turn the wheel,
they said,
join the production line
manufacturing some tepid dream
neither yours, nor really mine
better earn and save and toil
to buy my plot of soil
and build a house whose
walls will crumble away
just like myself, one day.
Sitting in that Square,
heart sunken to ground
the protest song rang through my soul
and deeper truth I found
for the point of raking in cold cash
gets shot down at the knees
when one opens wide
their tired eyes
and begins to truly see;
all that glitters is not gold
and not all gold is reality.