Happy New Year to the Working Class

If revenge was what we are after
There is not enough blood left
In the phlegmatic veins of the capitalist class
To shed for all their historic crimes

Against my blood brothers and sisters
Who die in their killing fields
Lose limbs in their factories
And finger nails in their torture chambers

No Sir!

If revenge was what we are after
There are not enough heads to roll
Not enough nails to pull
Nor ribs to crack

Ask the 19 year old girl who pines for
The soldier they killed
As clear as if they held the trigger
Puppeteers of history with the shaking fingers

That shake so much that their
Predatory Drones scatter its repugnant seed
The shrapnel on my shoulder is
'A particle of fate of mankind'

Now, my brothers harken!
The rich pigs  that pull these strings
Do so with many a helping hand
What is their biggest weapon - it is not them Drones!

No Sir!

The standing of reality on its head
And feeding it to us, through their organs
Of deception - now that is their Method
Far worse than their violence

If not for their Great Papers like the New York Times
Why, we would not think that the Rich is entitled
To keep stealin' killin' and maimin'
While we be grinnin' and compainin'

No Sir!

The young shoots of a new future
Are being prepared on this scorched Earth
They prepare it - and we harvest it
And that is how this road will run

If revenge was what we were after
The outpouring of love, empathy and humility
That our working class possess would surely
Prove a hindrance

To the road that history opens for us
'Here - here take it, own it' - she sings, whispers and sometimes Screams!
Did you hear her in Egypt, Tunisia and perhaps in Wisconsin?
Louder than the empty tin cans of the Capitalist Press!

Happy X'Mas to the Working Class

Happy X'Mas to us -  the Working Class

To the sales girl at the liquor store
Who will lose her job to the Retail Giant - Costco
And the homeless man with the dog
I see at the corner of 108th and the gas station

Happy X'Mas to you all
That make all these goods for us
The little trinkets going on the tree
And the wrapping paper

Happy X'Mas in the name of Jesus
And that of a lesser known - Frank Little
That the rich overlords dragged through town
And lynched in August of 1917

The man in the drab grey shorts
Rushing harried from door to FedEx truck
So that the rich can add Half a Billion
To their over-stretched bank books

The woman pushing the cart of half-eaten food
Struggling against the load and trying to
Prevent brushing against the fine clothes
of Ladies and Gentlemen at the Bellagio

The girl at the checkout counter at Safeway
Who stands on her feet all day
With no rest, and few breaks
But a ready smile to all she sees

To the man who watched as his fellow worker
Got entangled in wires on a ladder
And got fired to a crisp - causing a momentary break
In the profit machine, that unrelenting beast

And you at Verizon who struck, for a better life
And have that scab run trucks over your foot
While your fat cat union heads "reached a compromise"
To you too, my brother, a Happy X'Mas

The grunts at Microsoft, Google and Amazon
Stooped over terminals, wracking their brains on
How to make Billions of dollars more for the rich
Who then demand more - how to deal with this?

And to the man in the Appalachian coal mines
Who pays with his three L's : Lungs, Limbs and Life
So the bourgeoise can have Heat and Security
And add another lock to their gate

The soldier who is forced to
Hold a gun against his own class
That weeps for one who took his own life
Happy X'Mas to you too

X'Mas is made by you - the poor, the starved, the virtuous and Godly
And enjoyed by the Ungodly, filthy, bloated Scum aka the 1 percent
That measure their ill-gotten time on this Bloody Earth
By bare seconds,  let them have their cake - for now.

Oil In the Dessert

The man paces the expansive hall
Patent leather shoes on plush carpet
Scotch on the rocks lieing untouched
On the dark mahogany desk

He reaches for the phone
And instructions to move a Billion
coins of gold is sent
Like a speeding bullet

Across the continent
And it hits, finding its mark
And death rains on the villagers
As they scatter in the dessert

Under its scorched ground
Gurgling, whispering flows this Oil
That the bullet is supposed to uproot
into the bank books

Of New Yorkers and Londoners that pace
Those stately rooms with the marble halls
And lush carpet and deep soft couches
Where you sink in and disappear

And swoon in debauchery
From too much and an inability to
Keep it for yourself
Having to entrust it all

To scum bag executives
And sleazy accountants
The disloyal rotting lot who would
As likely cut your throat

If they could
If the mob would come
And help expropriate
The expropriators

Silence

A squeal of tyres
Loud and angry honking
Curses
Mixing with the latest music
From a record bar

Scraping chairs
Clattering of plates and dishes
Piled high on the waiter's arms
The drum beat of the Kottu

The weary souls burdened
By mounting hardship
Spoke spearingly
In silence.

The Rich Man's World

The whispers of the tired, wafts in the cold breeze of September
In the violence of the twin towers crashing home below
As the dust bowl of 2001 spreads across the sky line of the rich
And the white workers with blackened faces dig out the rubble

Somewhere in a secret prison beats the heart of a man
Considered an enemy of civilization that championed the waterboard
He lies accountable for the rich man's folly, a system of rot
As the steel boot of capital breaks open his jaw

In the oval offices of Washington DC, there speaks the learned
Those who make the laws and methods that subject the working class
To the glorious dignities of labor - if they are so chosen
As the owners of society relax in the sunny beaches of conquered natives

A little Palestinian girl is shot straying into the fire zone
Seventeen times and pronounced dead, murderers acquitted of all charges
Combat troops withdraw from Iraq, nothing changes in policies on ground
Drones bleed the life out of poverty in Afghanistan

In the streets of America, in the metro bus, in the trains and store-fronts
People wait, muted, talking shop, talking rubbish to pass the time
While in the background sounds menacingly - the "steel of our ship"
The boots of the armed fascists with machetes and kalashnikovs

A young man, fresh out of college scans the "jobs" section of the paper
That tabloid of dis-information that he still has to consult
To find his value - if it exists - as measured in the market of sweat
Or blood, as he finds in the full page ad to "Join The Army"

A few words spoken
Out of a million
Ages ago
has stuck in memory lane

A look, a certain tone of voice
A question, a doubt
A cautious venture
Into uncertanity

The loss, what was missed
In those million words
And the few that stuck
Haunt me as I see

The landscape of my child hood
changed with the passing time
Even unchanged things look vague
As time exacts its price
Where progress missed.

I glance up at the night sky
And see the millions of jewels
In the sky, vieing for their place
Twinkling in the grand expanse
Of the milky way

A galaxy of maidens
Rooted in time, their dance muted
But still captivating us
Drawing us in, our questioning minds
That wonder what stopped their dance

My mind wanders
To bath-sheba, to the north point
In that Carribean island of idle
Youth savored on
Rum, tequila with salt
Gazing up at the night sky
As we traced the contours of nightingales
With the Atlantic rushing in our ears

Laughter, at the Ship-in
Alison Hinds and Square One
The first night club I saw on the beach
The waves, the rocks, the puddles
Long nights and short days

A moment wrenched
From history
Treasured, savored, remembered
For eternity..