Feed Of Man

If you beat up, you butcher and you bleed a man

You bang up and badger and blood-let a man

And then I come along on the feet of man

And halfway laugh and cry about the meat of man

And I do what I can

To bale string and tie

Some ballad truths

Up and cured out

For the feed of man

Folks try to tell me that it's on God's orders

That you bleed your man

It's on God's good word that you bleed your man

On God's plan, print that you dead a man

Or spit and curse and whip your man

I say I'll help you squeeze and fix yourself up

A new kind of God of some kind

One that tells you, fertilize and multiply

One that tells you, outsow and outblow

Outplant and outgrow

Outdo and outrun and outclimb and outspread

Every other tree and bush

And brushy fruits and flower petals

Outfruit them all for the feed of man

Outstalk and outhunt and outthink

For God's own sweet sake, outthink! Outthink!

Outthink the fruits

Outgrow these animal kinds and shapes of man

It you miss and go down

Your dust will turn up on that long hot job

Once more again

To help in the feeding and the seed of man

And not in the bleeding and the end of man