Lyrics The Invertebraes - Live at Österåker Prison, Sweden - October 1972 - Johnny Cash

This is a poem that was written by man in a prison in America.
And it says a lot for all of us, poem written by by man in American prison
Some men spend a lifetime in the hope they can devise
A chart which will an able man then someday analyze
The wretched men who stumble then somehow cannot arise
They'll pay one man to draw the charts another to declare
What secret signs are in the lines but do they really care
That one is long and one is short and one line is not there
For charts or abstract documents that cannot have a soul
They cannot tell why this man fell and that one reached his goal
Nor can they tell why some rebel and lose all self control
I think a thousand years from now as it was long ago
Two roads will be for all to see but which way will man go
Will he arise toward the skies to reach for some new plateau
Will he devise a brave new world a world thus far unknown
Will he plow under all the seeds of greed and hate he sewn
Or will he steal the very field he plants his hopes upon
As long as there are two such roads a man can look upon
As long as some men linger deep within the twilight zone
The weak will always take the road that leads to wall of stone
There should be made a stone blockade torn from the prison stone
And make a wall across all roads man should not walk upon
And let the seeds of bitter weeds grow till that road is gone
Then those who sot in higher power those who hold the might
Could then direct the hordes of men on to the way that's right
And then the men who draw the charts would also see the light