These people that live short lives of irrelevant beauty,
Are the art that litters the books of forgotten history;
Someone burnt down the museum but not the library,
Said the words were too hot for flames of the literary.

So I talked to these people and spent all day drinking,
They told of the treasures of ignorance and thinking;
But the dark waters rose as their boats were sinking,
Last I saw they were deep under water, lights blinking.

I buried their fading memory on the shores of denial,
I hung my head and thought of their dreams awhile;
Not for heroes, but for them I couldn’t help but smile,
For it is the common people that truly live lives of trial.