It caused a grand deliberation of the watchers in their ships.

And many years were spent in QUIET observation.

It wasn't bullets that they questioned.

They had that all inspected.

It was linked to a consumable; It was a food association.

A twisted shard of metal, a razored blade with smiling face.

It cut the toes, and tongue, and windpipes -- many millions.

Consider that with fear. . .

Take a moment and you hear

The labored breathing of a Planet frankly cursed with all her billions!

Take them all placed end to end, to the moon -- it ain't pretend.

And they're flicked, and tossed to shimmer in our sun.

The disease that they have caused

Is a resource draining dodge;

It made a few too rich for dreams. It put the watchers on the run.

There were many died directly as they sucked it in their lungs.

A few obliged to use it as a weapon.

We were slow to learn the lesson;

Exhaust the stocks before confessing,

That it should have stopped immediately! It never should have happened!

The bunkie sneers inanely from convenient comfy spots

That "there's folks who choke on buttons every year. . ."

"You'd have us give up buttons?"

Their strawman that unsubtle. . .

Like razor blades for buttons isn't stupid -- isn't queer!

Jimmy Buffet groks the import of this twisted slash of metal

That you keep beneath your notice under pots.

He missed his Latin cutey

And she was a raving beauty. . .

But it's watchers cutting feet on all our pop tops!

Now who gives a flying boink in discussion on a pop top?

It's not well that you should really have to ask.

In itself it's bad enough

Life and death-like kind of stuff --

But mere component of a thousand sterner tasks.

It's the watchers, though, that matter and they write what should be written.

It is someday we'll be reading what was said.

There is little we've accomplished,

Where we find it we're astonished!

But it's mostly just our sorrow as we shake now humble heads.

I think everybody has a pop top story that illustrates just how nasty they were. The thing is, they were with us longer than they needed to be. Why?

Well -- nothing personal, it was just business -- inventory had to be exhausted, investments had to be protected. . . comfort had to be assured. . .

If I was a watcher, I'd hide from us too!