Ancient Ark - Victims of Power

Verse 1 They sketch the borders with a heavy pen And partition out the lives of working men The ledgers open and the margins tight We clear the fields before the fading light A dollar traded for an hour’s sweat The ledger keeps us drowning in the debt Verse 2 The sirens whistle from the valley floor We line up early at the factory door No names are spoken, only badge and number We build the engines that disrupt our slumber They buy the harvest just to let it spoil While hands are calloused from the turning soil Chorus We are the collateral of their design The names forgotten on the dotted line They pull the levers from a distant hill We pay the taxes and we pay the bill Just small statistics in a ledger book They never notice what their hands have took Verse 3 A letter arrives with an official seal To tell the family of a broken deal The pension's gone, the safety net is torn Another generation left to mourn The laws are written by the men in suits Who reap the blossoms but destroy the roots Verse 4 We watch the paper prices rise and fall While hunger standardizes every hall They speak of progress on the evening news But never mention those who have to lose The profit rises as the people fade Beneath the bargain that the masters made Chorus We are the collateral of their design The names forgotten on the dotted line They pull the levers from a distant hill We pay the taxes and we pay the bill Just small statistics in a ledger book They never notice what their hands have took Outro The shift is over and the tools are down A quiet weariness across the town They hold the gavel and they hold the key But cannot quiet what we choose to see The ledger balances, the cost is clear We bear the burden year after year