Paul Shapera
One More Round
[BOGDAN]
Dirt in your fingernails
Holes in your clothes
The smell of fresh alcohol
The fathers we know

No bridge for the distance
This children will learn
We judge and we wonder
Until it’s our turn

So pour us here one more round
We've not yet fallen down
I can still lay down
Without holding onto the ground

Here's to knowing our place
And boots in our face
Try to ground us on down
So right now one more round

All the days lurching forward while the liquor pours forth
And why not, what you've got to stop it for
All the good times will fade to a future that's laced
With a tedium that'll drive any man here insane
Brave our fathers fought then but returned broken men
My old man slogged and scraped his wildfire tamed
He drank a strong brew he made of sad bitter rage
To his grave and I know that that's me soon one day

All our days set in place from our cribs to our graves
Sure you kick for a minute before you settle in your cage
You're flat broke and you're heeled
You just work your field
Get too loud they'll come round and your little girl steal

Our masters one and all hold us all by the balls
And like beaten dogs they think we'll lay and take it all
Be their battered whore come crawl and grovel one and all
While out there in the fields are rebels, blood, and steel

So one more round, I've not yet fallen down
The Vizier's death or my last breath is all I care for now
One day soon he'll say my girl's name in pain
On my soul this I vow so right now one more round