A Poem

This was posted on the Traveller Mailing List by Jeffery Schwartz under the title Apologies To Papa Heinlein:
 
Like barb wire ties around me
tightening and cutting all my girth
are all the stupid laws
Of the nanny state of Earth.

The arching sky is calling
Spacemen  to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
But the call is allowed to fade

A third or more of what I made
goes to EBT and things
that insure that I'll never fly
near Saturn's rainbow rings

We're denied each spinning space mote
As they steal all that's worth:
Taken from us the homes of men
and locked us to the Earth.

No longer ride the sons of Terra,
silent the thundering jet,
a shackled race of Earthmen,
whipped dogs, once the lone wolf's get.

We rot in the molds of Vegas,
We retch at New York's tainted breath.
Foul are her urban jungles,
Crawling with unclean death

My heart breaks in longing
As I stare at the voids between
To out along the spaceways
Until what my soul hears is seen

Across the seas of darkness
looking up from Earth's blight
wishing another Star was my homeland
Praying it shine down on me tonight.

Cursed with life in prison
since the moment of my birth
Damned to ever hear the lies
of the morons that rule the Earth

I pray for just one launching
On the globe that gave us birth
to escape to the fleecy skies
And from the cold dark streets of Earth.