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Sleeping masters roused to burning homes from beds. |
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Steeping toddlers plucked from their watery deaths: ribbons, plaques and soft-soap are the ephemeral rewards paid to the slaves whose selfless acts accord a higher value to their masters, while parting gifts (bolt pistols) console the rest. |
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The remainder. |
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Too bad the tributes paid to lives that relegate these thrones to lives spent valuing the runners-up, are known to be neither fleeting nor desirable. |
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But nothing surprises me these days. |
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I just sit and watch the box-cars roll by and wait. |
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Patient.Unattended. |
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A package under a terminal bench. |
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A short fuse to scatter steady hands if |
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I forget to remember that better lives have been lived in the margins, locked in the prisons and lost on the gallows than have ever been enshrined in palaces. |