Iron Question Mark

The register tape unrolls like an indictment down the floor Fluorescent drone across the aisle, the tally marks the door The needle stays pinned on empty while the barrel price takes flight A hard-earned week of diesel sweat dissolved before the night Raw capital strips the bone clean to keep the margin wide Two or three old warlords push the border pins aside Cold breath fogs the windshield glass, frost hardens on the wheel Punching out forty hours just to bargain for a meal A hairline fracture runs the state, the compass swings around The hard-right alignment bends into authoritarian ground Old treaties snap along the joint, the borders freeze in place The cable feeds spit uniform reports of blood and debt into the air Alliances turn paper-thin, the marching orders sound A continent re-drawn in chalk on broken treaty ground The future sits across the road—an iron question mark Crowned with a jagged line of wire, an exclamation mark! A couple bosses cut the deck on polished plate and glass While down below the pavement splits and cities take the flame Which road gets taken on the map before the shutters close? Think ahead and read the fence before the winter grows! Drop the iron at the pass, weld shut the Balkan rail A curtain forged in cold-rolled steel to turn the old one pale A severed flank taken down, swallowed in the sweep Three reactor cores blow open where the sirens fail to speak A sulfur blanket hangs dead weight above the valley head The currency turns into scrap, the central ledgers dead Fields are broken up by hand, draft horses take the trace Oxen pulling through the dirt where tractors held the space Long rows of dead-cell batteries decaying in the weeds Sixty-thousand-dollar shrines to power no one leads Alliances turn paper-thin, the marching orders sound A continent re-drawn in chalk on broken treaty ground The future sits across the road—an iron question mark Crowned with a jagged line of wire, an exclamation mark! A couple bosses cut the deck on polished plate and glass While down below the pavement splits and cities take the flame Which road gets taken on the map before the shutters close? Think ahead and read the fence before the winter grows! Human lives discounted for a quarterly return The balance shifts in private rooms where quiet matches burn Fate is not a granite slab, the ledger isn't set Clarity is survival—silence pays the debt The clock ticks heavier in the dark. Time pulls back its tide. The black pall settles motionless across the countryside. One pencil mark upon the card before the fences meet Think ahead while iron hangs above the open street... Or did you ever have to live on the other side?