The Examiners

Where the house is cold and empty and the garden's overgrown

Where the letters lie unopened by a disconnected phone

Where your footsteps echo strangely on each moonlit cobblestone

Where a shadow streams behind you but the shadow's not your own

You may think the world's your oyster but it's bone, bone, bone

They are there, the examiners are there

They assume it as an impost or they take it as a toll

The contractors grant them all that they incontinently stole

They will shrivel your ambition with their quality control

They will desiccate your passion, then eviscerate your soul

Wring your life out like a sponge and stuff your body down a hole