Rules Are Rules
The votes come in
Someone wins
And then you let them do
What they must
Because, rules are rules
No matter
If people are then murdered
In the streets
Doors broken down
Or thrown into unmarked vans
Because, rules are rules
No matter if we kidnap
Foreign leaders we don’t like
Snatch them out of their own beds
And fly them here for secret trial
Anything goes
Or blow-up boats
In the middle of the ocean
Survivors left to drown…
Judge, jury, and executioner
Because, rules are rules
No matter that we bomb
The bejesus out of a country
Get nothing in return
And then beg them for a ‘’deal”
Because, rules are rules
Or long ago…
The Great Depression
Financial numbers
No longer adding up
People suddenly penniless
Nothing to eat
Standing in soup lines
Even jumping out of windows
But everything, was actually still the same…
The same people
The same jobs
The same factories
But the numbers
No longer added up
So people had to starve
Because, rules are rules
It seems to be
The way of the world
And we all just have to
Get used to it
Because, after all
What else can we do?
Rules are rules
Steven Meloan‘s fiction collection, St. James Infirmary, was released on Roadside Press. In a past lifetime, he was a busker in London, Paris, and Berlin. He is currently assembling a poetry collection…and spending time at Portals.
