Used to be the working
man had a house, a car,
some free time. Used
to be before the Soviet
collapsed, before the
competition of ideas
was buried in the greed
gleaming in the victors’
predatory eyes. Before
them a future unfettered
by fairness or the sharing
of even the tiniest scrap
of wealth. Long gone
those ancient times
of real unions and the
power of men and women
to shut down the works,
to make the bosses grit
their white teeth and spit
bile on the marble floors
of their grand mansions.
Now the screech of
rulers and the rich fills
the air like the wail
of vultures diving
at carrion, but if you
listen carefully, if you
listen hard there are
other sounds, there are
the cries and calls for
action, for once more
the passion stirs as it
always has: what is right
and just must, in the end,
prevail in this struggle
never ceasing. It must.