story in the house

from heavy silence the ancestral tale

slowly emerges not in open sound

but in hard wood that pushed out of dark ground

in the hot years when work was all travail

life turned to shit and choices all seemed stale

you could buy humans at so much per pound

no honest passion in the goods they found

gods had no words but devils all were pale

this is the age when each bill is redeemed

in honest cash straight on the barrelhead

so we were told at rising of this sun

miracles now that old folks never dreamed

an end to terrors there'd be no more dread

but now it seems the whole thing was in fun