by B. R. GOWANI

all empires build taller and taller ladders by stealing rungs
one empire, The Empire, stole the entire ladder, the tallest of them all
other empires couldn’t survive against The Empire; so they gave up
The Empire extended the tallest ladder further by adding more rungs
100 rungs altogether made up The Empire’s ladder
but the people on the top, the ruling class, got very, very greedy
it started cutting off the middle rungs every now and then
time came when only two rungs were left — the top one & the bottom one
the top rung held just 1% people but 99% belonged to the bottom rung
then one day, the ladder fell and the 1% became part of the 99%
what was the reason for the tallest ladder’s fall?
the 1% made up of warmongers, capitalists, and such had become too obese
the bottom 99% ones couldn’t hold the ladder’s weight; they simply gave up
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com