Tower success

 * tower success *
Build it and they will come
The Babel city council motto
In league with developers saw an oportunity
So up went the Tower of Babel
An engineering super achievement
Using multi-national labour
The latest in claybrick construction techniques
Utilising the latest Arabic mathematics
For stress tolerances and angled directions
Always likely to a white elephant
Too many innovations all at once
And an over-ambitious business success definition
To reach the Gods in heaven
Except heaven's location wasn't clearly defined
Either philosophically or in cubits
Just a vague faith based approach
Then there was inevitable scope creep
Arguments over shape of the tower
The Modern Egyptian pyramid
Or the tradional Babylonian Ziggurat
The invention of honeyed mead didn't help
A hardworking alcohol soaked workforce
Made downtown Babel fractious on a Friday night
The project inevitably came apart
Some blamed divine intervention
For making each man unable to understand the next
And so all work grew confused and failed
More likely I would think
A workforce management issue
Not enough shekels in the monthly paypacket
Demand for more lenient whip usage
An extra mead break demand too many
Or maybe the tower just got so high
Outpaced innovations supporting the building
Occupational health and safety issues arose
Grew so horrendous and taxed popular imagination
Could a man survive hundred feet up
Get nose bleeds or collapse unconscious
The perils of these pioneers
Doomed the endeavour to failure
And this Seventh Wonder of the World
Failed stairway to the Gods
Spun as a successful eco-park
Used for hanging gardens.