Portmantle

The face of the movement against arrogance

A child is much easier to criticize than a king

Who will defend a fallen Icarus?

Who would’ve commissioned a better pair of wings?

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Curiosity and ambition heralded as sinfulness

The selective interpretation of oral tradition

The fathers warn their sons about Icarus

Just another lie of omission

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The people in power tell the tradesmen to fear magnificence

Find cruel ways to exploit another’s intelligence

Middle-man victim and perpetrator, the father of Icarus

I daresay complicit in his negligence

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Distrust of the untrustworthy is regarded as insolence

Those who crave obedience tend to villainize suspicion

Would you have listened to your father if you were Icarus?

The man whose actions put you in prison

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Power-hungry kings unchecked in their wickedness

Demanding tributes paid in blood

The collateral damage of a once-laughing Icarus

Tragically dead and misunderstood

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Sacrifice others and die over something so ridiculous

Trading children for the beauty of a bull

The context usually left out of the tale of Icarus

The decisions made by someone far more powerful

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A just, respectable, well-loved dictator of malevolence

The gods and storytellers are suddenly forgiving

Perhaps the island and the sea were given to Icarus

But the king is still trusted with souls no longer living

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Manipulate a meaning out of innocence

A name twisted to symbolize a lesson

The youth forever suffer the fate of Icarus

Paying the price for another’s transgressions

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It’s systematic in the way a society affects an individual’s decisions

Political corruption begets desperation in the common folk

To be punished and deprived of freedom like Icarus

Who wouldn’t try to fly even as they go down in smoke?

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So lock up the children and call it diligence

Punish them for the crime of being unprotected and alive

Place the blame on them like we do with Icarus

It’ll help the guilt fade over time

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Modern conglomerates, an oppressive king’s equivalence

A quest for money and power, an ease in blaming the blameless

I crave freedom enough to to envy the flight of Icarus

The privilege of reaching to the sun through the greyness

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It’s in the way capitalism breeds wistfulness

Stability for the working class as distant as the sun

Why do we still make a lesson out of Icarus?

Condemn the ache for a better life, to be more than just someone’s son

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The generation of the creators of artificial intelligence

Ridicule the children for the technology use

But it was Daedalus who crafted the maze, and made wings for Icarus

And the situation didn’t allow for substitutes

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So who pays the price in the end for a society so pernicious

The climate crisis, the dopamine addictions, the economic crash

The story always ends with Icarus

Getting blamed in the aftermath