Best Karl Marx Poems
Karl Marx house in Trier.
Know you where it is,
Abode of wisdom today we live,
Renown for industrial change?
Labour unite...still remember the say?
Man! It is a place to be,
Athenaeum of global change,
Rare to find in somewhere else,
X-rays of wars on man and growth.
Herein philosophy lived,
On the table under the tree he wrote,
Uniform of the legend intact in’robe,
Spoons and forks that fed the brain,
Excellent works of yester years.
In the anthology photos speak;
No to exploitation is all they say.
This environment beauty to behold,
Roman empire relics here and there;
In Karl Marx house in Trier,
Eyes have many to learn:
Respectable mount of thought.
Born May 5, 1818, in Trier Germany
to Heinrich and Henrietta Marx,
sans the third of nine children
(and second oldest heir)
Karl Marx thinking begot incendiary sparks,
asper his two most controversial publications
titled The Communist Manifesto,
and Das Kapital
which political philosophy
incubating seeds of self destruction didst birth
doctrines of class struggle,
historical materialism, dearth
of equitable wealth, and inherent
contradictions of industrial capital
distributed unevenly
across avast swath of Earth
thus inviting his perspective
(conveniently exploited,
mined, and usurped) advocating
the working class (proletariat)
to expedite organized revolutionary action
to topple capitalism and bring about
socio-economic emancipation,
where wages of sin exchanged for labor bled
fingers to the bone life source, viz proletariat
till slaving laborer nearly became gratefully dead
despite being cased in 12 point
Times New Roman garb, who incessantly fed
insatiably maws of production,
(no way to get a supportive talking head)
particularly highlighted
within schema of Capitalism),
a predominant paradigm
stratifying society led
to internal tensions engendered
between bourgeoisie red
dilly controlling means
of production codified as said
as die a critical approach Marx coined
as historical materialism,
where figurative landmines forced one to tread
gingerly, thus above stated philosophy
would supposedly lead down the road
where self destruction wrought marriage
birthing Socialism offspring from shot gun wed
ding, thus coaxing eventual establishment
of classless communist society meant
to establish free association of producers who spent
exchanging merchandise amidst classless
campy population hood pitched a tent.
Jesus Christ and Karl Marx seek lost children in the City of Gold
In shackled shack with weight of broken bricks on tin roofed promises
she rest her head against the precious paraffin cooker empty and cold
Five children to feed no milk in once beautiful breasts life sour and rancid
abused and battered and her husband long gone in yesteryear’s crossfires
‘Tulinagwe’ is free from luxurious troubles plods on no fancy resides in
her township a voyage no carrier of progress and a storm with no sail
‘Mawuli’ lives close liberated from hardship quite posh in his mansion
a world away in marvellous marble box tree hedges protecting ascent
He rose manicured hands roses lawns perfumed clothing no sweat while
his gardener reaps thorns and oppression from inside walls’ dwelling
Born free after the fall of Apartheid his stars and his God have sheltered
adorned crowned zenith’s success a story from another page in the book
‘Mawuli’ lives resolute on ‘Tulinagwe’s shoulders brethren in union while
her dreams have dissolved and yet my free flight of fancy calls resurrection
For both in their names Christ shed his nails for Christ’s sake or for their
blood so let us be reminded that revolution does never start at the top
Has either read Shakespeare or for that matter the bible when ‘Tulinagwe’
has no privilege to read while 'Mawuli' browses his browser brokers his shares
Two sides of a hopeful reminder that Marx still inhabits money and freedom
and that the burden of change contains a message for all children of God
06th May 2017 written for ‘Fancy Free’-Contest
Death Bed Poetry: Karl Marx
(Epigraph: "Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!")
The final dictate, delivered with a wheezing sneer,
A curt dismissal for the great, grave theater
Of the dying ego, demanding one more line
To cap a life and make the silence shine.
Fools, you say, who, having spent a lifetime’s breath
Defining the very engine that drives history to death,
Still clutch the air for one last, luminous phrase,
To illuminate their final, failing days.
A monumental architect of the printed word,
Whose volumes mapped the chaos of the world,
The ghost of surplus value and iron law
Haunted the margins of your every flaw.
Did you fear, perhaps, that any last poetic art
Would only prove you had a beating, fragile heart?
That all your monumental works would stand betrayed
By some soft whisper you accidentally made?
No. The dialectic spent, the argument complete,
You chose the only perfect, final, grand retreat:
To mock the final word, to scorn the need to speak,
Leaving only thunder where a silence ought to break.
In Brussels, I sat among doubters.
You spoke—calm, fierce, certain.
They mocked.
I listened.
Your words fell like thunder in a silent hall.
“Workers of the world, unite!”
They laughed.
You prophesied.
Now it is 2025.
And your shadow walks again.
Machines rule the hands of men.
Corporations sit where kings once sat.
You said,
“The production of too many useful things
creates too many useless people.”
Today I see them—
wandering, forgotten,
slaves to invisible masters.
You warned,
“History repeats itself—
first as tragedy,
then as farce.”
Look now—
Gaza burns,
Europe trembles.
The farce wears the mask of progress.
Your words were not theory,
they were scripture for the waking poor.
But the poor still dream.
The chains remain—
polished, digital, unseen.
I walk to your grave in Highgate,
where the wind still whispers revolt.
Your prophecy breathes in the dust.
Your ghost still teaches in silence.
Karl Marx—
the world you warned is here.
And I, your disciple,
kneel among your ashes,
still believing,
still mourning,
still waiting for the workers to wake.