Labor Day Observations

Tell me again This wealth you gasp and clamour for This strategy you wield From the invincible substratum Where the hunt pursues the frenzied heart And the congestive traffic of arteriosclerosis For what do you deal The long evenings swinging on the green and The soul's sanity again? I have checked for definitions One say it is production from the land And I hear in it engines Ripping out the earth's red heart Another say it is a product of labour And I imagine a weary mother And the pains of dystocia Besides you own no land Where concrete does not mushroom Into skyscrapers And dirt abominable in the atmosphere And I guess labor is not physical. Some say it is a measure of value Of what you own Was that the members of my body For I pay tax for Is a mere rental, not mine. Easement only entitles me To brown paper bags blowing in the gust And the oily wrap of hamburger papers I never bought them They just fell where I bare the cost without the benefits. Men who own revenue are rich You say it is policy That the labourers clock in at eight I say its power That make men to make wealth They give away for the pittance of wage All morning I have watched them As they check their assets of grief Before getting to security at the gate Grief is suspicious you know Only terrorists have grievances. We bring our last resolve to work The heart like a derrick Grappling with the weight in the sky. It is all your wealth His mother phlegmatic coughing And asbestos dust Thickening on the lip of the child I have no love for the Midas disease For still its free The open air The sun cracking nuts in a tree And the wild shout of cataract And below me the immense gorge Where the water trickles Under the dam Irrevocably to the sea.