Strike! Strike!
Strike up the Band!
If you're brown
please beware
If you’re black
watch your back
If you’re yellow
dive for cover
If you’re red
you’re already dead
Strike! Strike!
Strike up the Band!
They’re coming to take us away!
They’re coming to take us away!
Raise high the flag
Raise high those stars and stripes
We’re Christians and Hindus
Muslims and Jews
We work, we sing, we dance
We play in parks
On Sundays after church
We’re neighbors
We’re lovers
We’re builders, cowboys
waiters, and cooks
We’re hot dog vendors
and ice cream peddlers
We hoe your fields
and pick your fruit.
We drive your trucks
and plow your fields
We cut your meat
and herd your cows
You wonder the price
You wonder the vice
It’s time to De-Ice
Rid us of these lice?
Strike! Strike!
Strike up the Band!
They came and took us away
away
away
away to Guantanamo
Humanity has always had its haves and have-nots.
Before it was more about status and power
Wealth and position.
Today it is who has the desire to self-determine
Build their own home, raise their own family,
And who wants someone else to do it for them.
So we have two piles of society;
Those who are productive and who make,
And those who are parasitic and just take.
Both piles are growing, because both
Have their rewards,
But it’s still the makers who provide for the takers.
And what keeps that balance in place
Is the fear of what destruction the takers
Will make if they get cut off
From the hand that feeds them.
It’s a precarious balance of hope and fear,
But ultimately unsustainable.
There is no solution until the takers become
Self-sufficient and determined makers themselves.
But that will take a reckoning
Which society is not yet willing to make.
(9/24/26)
I remember little of my childhood.
Or perhaps I remember too much, but all of it in fragments.
Marabá Paulista would wake up before God lit the sun.
First came the smell of packed lunches being prepared—mingling scents
that slipped uninvited through the cracks in the houses' weathered wood.
Then, the diesel fumes and the red dust.
Old trucks, like monsters, rumbled through the streets,
swallowing up the adults and vanishing down the dirt road.
During the day, the town belonged to the children and the elderly.
We thought that was freedom.
At dusk, the trucks returned,
spitting out bodies that were barely alive;
my parents would arrive—worn out, stooped, and weary.
As a boy, I didn't yet know
how to put a name to it.
Today I know:
the trucks didn't just carry workers.
They carried away pieces of childhood.
Behold the mighty ego on two feet,
Whose brain is missing, though the suit is neat.
They walk around like kings of empty space,
With pride and panic painted on their face.
They talk for hours and say nothing new,
A one-person trash heap leaking out on cue.
Their grand ideas are small, absurd, and old,
Like yesterday’s stale soup left in the cold.
They open up their mouth to spin a tale,
Of how they fought a shark and rode a whale.
A walking billboard for a cheap brand name,
Where every minor errand wins them fame.
They brag of wealth they simply do not own,
And broadcast status from a cracked cell phone.
The room falls flat, the yawns begin to spread,
While they crown themselves inside their head.
They climb a molehill, screaming it’s Everest,
Convincing no one that they are the best.
A golden trophy made of painted tin,
All empty echo from their throat within.
613.
Santa Muerte, Godmother of Workers
Santa Muerte, Godmother of Workers
Godmother of Workers, oh Sacred Madrina
Bless all workers that they become God's followers
Protect them from harm, our Great Valedora
Bless all workers who contribute to society
Do not abandon them, our Dear Protectora
Protect our workers who help the community
Our workers who believe you, our Grand Patrona.
Amen.
-10/13/2018
(Dumarao)
*Special Intentions to Godmother Santa Muerte
Years of hard work preparing,
Long, rough days and short sleepless nights,
A resolute determination,
And an unwavering commitment
they display.
Countless fun times missed,
A willing sacrifice some say,
No matter the gender,
No matter the field,
Delivering each day
Sincere dedication to hard
work, striving to find a way.
One aim, challenging the impossible,
One goal,
Striving to make a difference,
Saving lives,
Hoping to see a patient’s smile,
Doctors, these miracle workers deserve praise and respect, no matter the outcome.
By Zyrool
5/26
37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Matthew 9:37-38
Golden Harvest
golden wheat
ready for
the harvest
help is scarce
many workers
are needed
the season
will end, much
will be lost
We have a day like this
To celebrate workers deeds
What shall we celebrate
When welfares aren't well calibrate
Between the retired and working ages
How great our nation has honoured the sages
If nothing is to be happy of
Lets celebrate our perseverance despite the tough
A time will come when workers will jubilate
When wages will inflate
May be to that of the senators
That's isn't greediness or some stutters
It isn't good when we have workers
As professional competent hawkers
Happy labour/workers day to the world
Be grateful when to us the table swirled
I got out of bed
In the middle of the night
My time is not my own
I do the tasks
That are required of me
My own sleep I do disown.
From one task to another
I go from room to room
Making sure everything is alright
I’m doing my best
And often I get it wrong
But sometimes I get it right.
Full-time job
On top of that
The foundations are about to crack
I do my best
With what I have
No time to take a nap.
But at night
I take flight
And my mind visits distant lands
My heart breaks out
In artistic scraps
Which I write with my crippled hand.
I do not begrudge
My lot in life
It is what it is, I know
But my poems and muse
Keep my “feet” moving
Leading me on the path to home.
A baas boy longing for his family uses the Morning Star as a point of reference and a guide for hope.
A Star/Steer poem
The distant star my guiding light shines down
on fields of labor hard and long.
A thousand miles from where my love is sown
I trace its beam and hum a silent song.
It knows the path my weary feet steer back
to the faces I hold so dear.
Does the same star watch over them tonight?
My wife,my children dreaming in the dark.
I pray it keeps them safe till morning light
and leaves upon their hearts a gentle mark.
I promise I'll journey home once more,
Sit with them on our humble floor.
Everyone has their ups and downs
sometimes you win sometimes you lose
come to a crossroads there's no knowing
which is the best path to choose
funny how the way to work gets longer every day
while the road to you is shorter by a mile
it don't make me late it's not the job I hate
and thoughts of you always always make me smile
but about my boss there's really nothing nice to say
with his workers working hard at not working at all
my co-workers shirkers lurkers each and every one
but then I have you to look forward to
when the daily race is run
and the working day is done
everyone has their ins and outs
some days are good some days are bad
go out on a limb and there's no telling
it may be the best day you ever had
everyone wants a happy ending
and I look forward to our rendezvous
my heart knows which route to go
it only shows the road to you
On the Great Railroad to Hell...
Pure Evil...have Private Cars
$ipping on...the Best Brandy
$moking...Fat Cuban Cigars
Dark $ouls $mirk...as they Wave...Bye
Poor Souls Work...and Wait to Die
Sadly...I'm in Hell...as Well
And I Can't tell...Earth...from Hell
When appearing in public as Droopy sad vote needy it just
crumbles just as the millions of others.
Left with a guilty dialogue to chase? Please yourself
and don't for once, your a grown up, you can don't know too.
Please visit Ventura and thousand oaks cities guys.
Bring your spine it has a home here it's missing
Get to work
Make nother talking history hiding
Oopsy building down?
Elected by majority of population, sad?
BEES
social
arthropods
each with its own task
most of them are workers
drones mate the queen to lay eggs
"a union discord can't discard"
NEW WAVE ASCENDS
Workers waul at leaders sold
who rush to airports cold
in hospitals wan women wallow
tattered children nothing to swallow
ideals trickling through untilled soil
will dreams and intentions expire
before patient arthritic grandmothers tire
softly rain filters Earth’s corners
nourishing hills, herbs and mourners
life follows death singing afresh
surely New Wave ascends roaring
freedom showers cool us alluring
in Golden Age Heart rules
teens dance while lovers drool
reach within, be no fool
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