The Spinner's Reel

The winter wind blows down the Mall, another deadline's come to call Speaker Johnson draws a line in sand, for the budgets of this troubled land March the first and then the eighth, they tempt the hand of closing gates While far across the sea they fight, with funding stalled in black and white Beneath the dome of marble white, they argue through the day and night. Oh, the wheel it turns, the pages fly A story old as sea and sky The ink is fresh, the words are new But I've seen this tale, for me and you From the halls of power to the prison cell

It's the same old heaven, same old hell. A colder wind, a darker tale, a name that rides the Russian gale From an Arctic camp, the message flown, a seed of courage that was sown They say that Navalny is dead, for all the brave things that he said A wife in grief, a world in shock, another turn of the prison lock He fought a king who fears the light, and vanished in the polar night. Oh, the wheel it turns, the pages fly A story old as sea and sky The ink is fresh, the words are new But I've seen this tale, for me and you

From the halls of power to the prison cell It's the same old heaven, same old hell. And back at home, a different pane, that ghosts a world on top of rain A headset pulled across the eyes, to purchase digital blue skies They call it Vision, slick and bold, a story for a price is sold To walk your room but be elsewhere, breathing manufactured air While real worlds burn and heroes fall, you answer a synthetic call. Some fight for laws and some for gold, some fight a story to be told Some trade their sight for pixels bright, and lose the battle for the light From Washington to icy plains, the same old human heart remains

It yearns for freedom, truth, or grace, or just a quiet, private space. Oh, the wheel it turns, the pages fly A story old as sea and sky The ink is fresh, the words are new But I've seen this tale, for me and you From the halls of power to the prison cell It's the same old heaven, same old hell.