Proletarians To the Fore

Arm to arm, sinews clutch One another, makes friend and crutch; One crimson call, which guidance brought The feeble, stern: the working lot To stand much greater, taller, strong Filled with hope, in lines long, That stretch from pain, from glum, from slum To the halls of white where nations clump In the deadest form of gathered hoards Of finance and shares, secluded boards Who array the work, who shackle in loans Whose empty plots tempt the sleeping droves In tent and rag, in cough and drag, From hand to mouth, to work and back. Yet in contempt that line is struck, Still the routine is mute, no more this work That builds the villa, never the mason’s, Unthanked which blooms the fields all season, The folks split off by plastic partition Giving wealth immense, yet maimed cognition Had kept whom bound to desk and ground Their eyes have met and their fists now pound Against steel ribbed doors, but why such fear Thee lords of land in prim kept highest tiers? Arisen so, on the claim of wealth, At the cost of Earth, of hearth and health; How much more flight, behind guarded holds, Behind sentries and dictates so cold Even in scorch of war, where poor kills poor; So the wealth of nations in tons can pour Onto odd few hands, to hold all us chained To the will of profit, for profit’s sake. But in queues, we’ve come, tools shucked Your batons brooked, your shots shrugged By the calloused bossom, by tried spine, That props all of it up, runs it all in time. And without us many, your wealth is rust, Without our trust it’s all a fleeting gust Of paper slips and accords of force And we see dawn, from these dues divorced. And the sun to snatch, the sickle drives, And the barricades the hammer tries, While the quill writes, not fearing death, A push for renewal, for a gasp of breath.