Culpability

It once was Eden, lush with life, nature's blushing maiden,

but soon awash in bloody strife, where hope and love lay beaten

Where man presumed to rule, blinded by false gain

Righteous and covetous left to duel the downfall of his reign

The throne was his, the survey vast

His kingdom gone, not built to last

The geld rewarded, with greasy mammon

Left unrecorded, in this empty canyon

Departed now the falsely loyal, the riders of the shirttails

All gone the peons made to toil, no more their anguished wails

And now he sits in sorry grace, to hold alone

a tarnished sceptre, a corroded mace

and only desolation to atone