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Shouting At Their Profit Clouds

Shouting at their profit clouds

I have been on the left all my life
Our leaders war in Vietnam inspired me 
As a young man, facing conscription
Then Labor was elected and saved me from jail
Or killing people I did not know
For reasons unfathomable
To my young mind

I was too young to vote
But went to Labor
Or rather its left
And found the branch meetings boring
Uniformative and superficial

I went to protests
But the economics and law I was studying - 
To change the world no less –
Consumed my life, my thoughts and my ideas
And led me to work in the tax office
Where I met my wife
Through a union meeting
And an action group
With revolutionary socialists in it
And found a new world 
That explained the one we lived in

I became a revolutionary
And have been for over 40 years now
Fighting the enemy, their class and its hangers on
Our victory would not be long
But I was wrong, it is eternity
We remain unfree, all of us
We kick up little fuss
As a class or even as 
Disconnected event protesters
I wait for the explosion, here and elsewhere
Because I care and am a socialist
Democratic and revolutionary
Where we become our parliament
For the people, not the one percent

My dream remains alive, 
In my mind and that of some others
And occasional outbursts of strikes
And big protests
That upset their status quo
For a little while, too little a time

And I rhyme my way around
Another poem, 
Just a person
Shouting at their profit clouds
Aloud,
Standing too alone
Until we all join together
Against them
Then we can be free

Copyright © John Passant | Year Posted 2019

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