Wednesday, October 16, 2013

labor aristocracy

sometimes hearing
the worst ideas
are the best lesson
because you remember them
forever
& so it was
when i was about nineteen
working as a laborer
on a parking garage construction site
     downtown pittsburgh
that one of the carpenters
told me
we need jobs
     don't care what we build
     don't care if we build concentration camps
we need jobs right now

well
i'm pretty sure it wasn't an original idea
this carpenter had
after all
it wasn't long before
(or maybe just after)
that spiro agnew's
so-called hardhats
     thugs by any other name
ripped thru our anti-war march
of dick gregory for president buttons
coming out of a misappropriated
(and misnamed) golden triangle
just past the swagger of the hilton hotel
& just about the same time
that george (segregation forever) wallace
dumped his bile on the stage at the civic arena
where several hundred of us protestors
found some very effective disruptive chants
to frustrate the racists & their drivel
til we were forcibly removed by the police
and my picture ended up on the front-page
of the local newspaper
& not to my surprise
confronted with that picture
on the construction site
by the foreman who fired me
& the carpenter
and his shit-eatin grin
to boot
looking on
like he had just won an election
or a war
or something

but i've got to say
it was all worth it
negatives become positives
when inverted
     and
     for good reason

--- e b bortz


(published in opednews.com, Oct 22, 2013)
(published in earth notes and other poems, Least Bittern Books, 2015)

2 comments:

Paul Friedman said...

And I was on the front page of the ny post being kicked by a construction worker for protesting the vietnam war in front of the ny stock exchange. Hey brother bortz, 50 years and we are still asking the right questions.

e b bortz said...

it's hard to reconcile the fact that fundamentally nothing has changed...there's a facade of 'inclusiveness' that just doesn't match the poverty, war, inequality, ecological peril on the ground...carry on we must. thanks & solidarity to you Paul.