Every textbook read
Teaches us to take pride in your graft
Live for you and we can eat
And hope a few survive as children
They'll endure by tooth and claw
The world is yours, the anthem sings
Said bring you the bread
Clock in clock out pray to the calf
It's dishonorable to cheat
My blood becomes your billions
Your bloody hands stain every vault
All is yours but we have dreams
But guess what we got you instead
Don't bother dodging simple math
All for one was bare deceit
There's one of you, but we are millions
The blade is clean, and sharp, and broad
We'll only keep a headless king.
capitalism
Taking Time
One called Victor, a Dutchman,
The other a Scotchman called James Gregory,
And the third being a negro named John Punch.
They had run away from Virginia, were caught, tried, and sentenced in 1640.
The Dutchman and the Scotchman were condemned
To serve out the remainder of their indentured servitude
Plus one year.
And the third being a negro was condemned to serve out his life.
John Punch became the first piece of chattel.
And so, we took his time.
Eons passed.
One man might own a hundred lifetimes.
One fattened tick
That could never live a minute longer
No matter how much time he sucked.
No matter the genteel civility lavished on his equals.
The tick’s cause was lost:
Chattel disfavored;
Wages more efficient.
And criminals… who cares what happens to them?
Oh, by the way, if you don’t have a job
We’ll have to arrest you for vagrancy.
And now we have moved on from that barbaric dispensation
All the old problems have been solved.
We join together in harmony
And ignore the strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Every day in the paper I read about time.
Time taken before it was due.
How much time does it take?
Dead Labor
We added the artisans first.
Then came the drudges working the assembly lines.
The farmers, or their laborers, at least, were also mixed in.
No one really wants to know how the sausage is made.
The computers were integrated.
Their astronaut wards processed beside them.
And now we've found a way
To dig up the artists, writers, musicians, and dancers, the builders and thinkers
And feed them to the corpse machine
We asked ChatGPT to write a poem called "Dead Labor"
And called it a "corpse machine."
It returned an awful poem:
Too declarative. No pulse. Generic and clichéd. No tension. Flatly moralistic.
Perhaps, if we feed it enough corpses, it will get better.
I fed myself to the corpse machine
And it returned a corpse.
We Are Kept Awake at Night by the Cries of Starving Children
It’s August now, and the stores are gearing up to save the economy
The holidays are coming close and spending has been low
To cure what ails we need to spend, the price of liberty
We are the best, we need the best, as everybody knows
Ghosts and goblins frighten children until they laugh with glee
Throughout the neighborhood they scatter, to every door they go
And bring home treats they went to earn with costumed trickery
But Hind Rajab, phone in hand, cries the tanks are coming close
Thanksgiving next as leaves turn brown and red and orange and fall
The turkey fat and steaming, plucked and stuffed so we can savor
And everyone gives thanks to God, that we could gather one and all
But Nabhan’s bodies in the orchard marred our grace, ungrateful to the Savior
Then Christmas time, with all the snow, and elves and gifts and wonder
Santa Claus, he’s at the mall, with manger scene prospectus
Parents wink and purchase gifts which to the tree go under
But Mohammad Al-Motawaq, that bony babe, should starve; it’s all genetic
Would that some high stationed man with money and a suit
Could find some way to hide from me the children destitute
For their cries are shrill and feral and they break the season’s peace
I don’t feel bad; I’m just annoyed: I want their cries to cease.
One More Mile
I got a mile more to walk, or so I’m told
The same thing I heard ten miles back up the road
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
Been toilin’ and troublin’ all my days
Got another mile to walk to find my grave
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
I’m adding to my load with every mile
And the load upon my back is miles high
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
I slow down with every step I take
My thoughts blow like dust across the plains
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
The boss man sold me miles when I was young
And I walked them with a smile and had my fun
Just another mile
Just another mile
With which they bought my young man’s soul
It’ll crush my bones as I grow old
They’ll find me broken down and all alone
With no more miles
With no more miles
And no more place for me to go
Gimme A Dollar
I found, as expected, a card in my mailbox.
Sealed with a sticker
Embossed: “Happy Birthday”
I wondered if there was a gift card inside for a bloomin’ onion
(There wasn’t)
Let me fish it from the trash–I don’t remember what it said–
“We hope that your birthday was as amazing as you are”
It’s management dogma:
Never give a worker anything useful
Wages are kept low
So we are kept weak
I wonder what a birthday card costs–I never buy them–
Everything costs twice as much as it did yesterday
(Except labor).
Signed with love, from my [redacted] family.
My [redacted] family,
Who’d just turned my brothers and sisters
Out in the cold
I suppose I should be grateful
For the chance
To feast on their flesh
My parents took me out to eat for my birthday and gave me a hundred dollars.
They spent time with me and we talked about the world.
They know I don’t want a card, though I’ll still check it
For cash before tossing it in the garbage.
How wonderful it would be to come to work on my birthday
And find a crisp one dollar bill
With love,
From my family.
Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium 