Empire with the Erie Canal

Empire with the Erie Canal 
greed through commerce drowned simple people
sacking earth's resources into hands of the few
impoverishing workers into wage slavery
states united undivided
from the Great Plains to the Appalachian Range
major undertakings taking natives under
industrial imposition revolutionaries wonder
when it was imperial to block the movement west

for well-connected colonials canals meant fortunes
Washington's land and wealth were presidential 
the Potomac Patowmack Canal Company his
so trade would pass Mount Vernon and not Montreal
friendly American fathers engorged themselves
at the expense of natives and squatting homesteaders 
to make their own empire
from sea to shining sea
it had nothing to do with you or me

"a canal to the moon," was the outcry
greed with territorial binds that tied us
leaving us stateless realities in rich men's dreams
through the Mohawk Valley it would gleam 
without the republic that Jefferson schemed 
eerie Erie banal Canal
landed aristocrats profited well
deeply did slave-laborers dig into hell
commercial adventure enterprise sell

to be continued...