Ballad For The Forgotten Workers Poem by Eric Cockrell

down by the river, down on the street,
past the empty factory buildings,
smokestacks that no longer smoke.
past the run down tenements,
past the vacant store fronts.
to fires that dont burn, and...
...engines that dont stroke.

down the road, leaving the city behind,
there's miles and miles of fields,
stone silent and turning brown.
tractors rusting in the sun,
a bucket by the well...
old house lies empty, falling down.

the sea of hands lost forever;
red and white, brown, and black.
headstones in the parking lots,
but they're never coming back.
built your cities, built your country,
plowed your fields, fed your hungry.
thrown away in your quest for power...
but their names mark the hours!

(steel workers, no more steel!
teachers, no more books!
farmers in the food lines,
no carpenters, no cooks.
cotton mills moved to Asia,
we cant even make tables and chairs.
no time clocks and no paychecks, ...
... nobody really cares!)