Classic Poem

Though starved throughout your every city,
Rotarian businessmen and boors,
We still defy you as we pity.
You cannot kill the troubadours.

You blacken heaven with smokestack pencil
And blemish nature with billboard art.
You force upon man's mind your stencil,
But cannot quell the singing heart.

Oh, lords of factory and steeple,
You scare the foolish, grind the poor,
Conspire against the weary people.
You cannot daunt a troubadour.

Our song shall drown your guns and whistles,
Inspire the meek to claim their rights.
We have forced kings to feed on thistles.
Strong kings who fought the singer-knights.

Despised, rejected, we remember
The land we ruled with song and amours.
The king and pope made Provence an ember
But could not crush the troubadours.

We have swallowed our fill of “facts” and scorning.
We have taken our stand with all the oppressed.
You will wake to our power on some red morning
When a poem sticks like a lance in your breast.

Pollute the springs of truth and rapture.
And rape the forests and the moors.
The singing folk elude your capture.
You cannot kill the troubadours.