Compulsory Dreams

We fed the lamp above us With the heat from underneath Hands on the timber Hands on the stone Hands in the weather Making shelter out of bone Bread on the table Smoke in the eaves Someone had to carry What the bright room never sees Up in the tower Paper stayed white Lamps could burn all evening On the labour of the night It was not theft to wonder Not a crime to think Not every cup of quiet Is a poison when you drink It was not wrong to see the wound It was not wrong to name it It was not wrong to hate the weight Where hunger bent the frame But a wound is not a blueprint And a grief is not a law And the floor is not made guilty For the dirt upon the door Dream in the tower Draw what you please But don’t make the living Fit the measure of your dream Civilisation can afford dreams Lamps and books and clean machines But the street was never born To obey compulsory dreams Every hunger had a number Every number had a cure Every room was drawn equal Every answer sounded pure No one rich above us No one poor below No one bent by bargaining No one bought or sold Pain corrected neatly In a diagram of bread All the crooked living Made obedient in red Then the plan came down the staircase With its polished little face And asked the living material To improve itself in place But the bricks had private weather And the beams remembered want And the doors learned who to open for And who to close upon There were favours in the hallway There were names behind the glass There were hands that signed the future And hands that only passed Dream in the tower Draw what you please But don’t make the living Fit the measure of your dream Civilisation can afford dreams Lamps and books and clean machines But the street was never born To obey compulsory dreams Civilisation can afford dreams Lamps and books and clean machines But the street was never born To obey compulsory dreams Gold became a doorway Bread became a name Power changed its clothing And the hunger stayed the same No crown upon the table No coin beneath the sleeve Only keys and permissions And the right to be believed The posters kept the promise The offices kept the keys The living paid the difference To preserve the symmetry They stretched what would not lengthen They trimmed what would not meet And called the bed compassion When the body would not fit And no one called it conquest And no one called it greed They only called it necessary For the world they meant to free Dream in the tower Let the lamp burn clean But don’t make the street Wake up inside your dream Civilisation can afford dreams Songs and plans and silver screens But the floor is not a canvas For compulsory dreams Dream in the tower Draw what you please But don’t make the living Fit the measure of your dream Civilisation can afford dreams But not compulsory dreams Let the tower dream Let the lamp burn clean But the living are not material For compulsory dreams