The pockets of poverty are empty tonight,
Used by the left and ignored by the right.
Look here, stranger, won’t you come and see
What this thing called poverty is doing to me ?
There’s hollers in these hills and hollers in my cheeks.
There’s taters in the cellar and years in most of my weeks.
There’s a hunger in my belly and a longing in my soul,
And there ain’t no silver lining for children on the dole.
There’s coal dust in my lungs and an achin’ in my bones
And evil in the wind with its high and mournful tones.
There’s salvation at the altar if you reach it ‘fore the grave.
I guess what I call dyin’ slow’s what you’d call “proud and brave”.
There’s sulfur in the well and whatnot in the creek.
There’s a birth or death or marriage nearly every week.
There’s a fire in the hole and a baby on the way;
There’s a lot of things that people know and even more they say.
There’s “sang” up on the ridge, black diamonds underground.
There’s just as many people lost as ever have been found.
There’s a lot of cracks all ’round not chinked against the cold.
Beans are done. Come on in. Believe my story’s told.
