the sign said no right turn
I went the wrong way instead
I said I should have walked left
to get you out of my head
but far I walked right
so far I walked wrong
tapping my feet
to this god awful song
and stomping I stopped
& turning around
it was me who left herself
to peel what was left
right off of the ground

This time is precious,
every moment infectious.
One minute in a parking lot,
parking cigarettes in the dirt,
outside a library no less.
And from one minute to the next,
shaking hands with a councilwoman.
Just her presence,
was a good omen.
This is a community meeting,
ahead of a strike,
on May 15th.

Our fight?
Our cause?
Wage parity.
The resource vitality,
of every worker,
and every family.
Every human deserves dignity.
Repeat it with rapidity.
We are all created equal.
This is a civil rights sequel.
You can't survive on $7.93
And if it were up to me,
No job would pay less than
FIFTEEN.

The rich can't inoculate,
what they didn't anticipate.
Fry cooks, cashiers, drive-thru tellers,
(these ain't no "bums" or beggars!)
They met up with activists,
and labor leaders.
They've walked off the job
and into the streets!
They've come out,
to take a stand,
to shake off their chains,
and make some demands!
$15 and a union!!!
If you haven't taken notice,
I don't what you've been doin!!!

I hope McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and retailers galore,
value the profit-producers,
running their stores.
The notion upon which,
both capitalists and socialists can agree,
is that labor produces value according to theory.

The media are watching,
in case you need reminding.
Watching you rake in BILLIONS,
while paying and STEALING,
POVERTY WAGES.
We call this condition,
hard-working ENSLAVEMENT,
with pay-as-you-go debit card "paychecks"...
And all this "part-time"
just to make sure workers are best
nickel'd and dime'd!!

But what you don't seem to understand,
is that this movement is long overdue.
Do we need a historical inflation review?
And this $10.10 business?
Please!
What is this 1993?

You can't sanitize,
Baptize,
nor televise,
this struggle.
These are a people who've had enough.
'Ya Basta!' they say! 'Enough is Enough!'
Enough struggle,
enough hustle,
Enough putting in muscle,
and your time, and blood,
and sweat and tears,
many with children,
many for years,
without a pay bump that keeps pace,
with the basic cost of living these days.

Still a minimum wage,
of only $7.93?!
I say 'Ya Busta!'
if you ask me.

I am stuck on this surface
with man eating serpents
that tear down your layers
and turn you into servants
with sharp daring teeth
and disease ridden purpose  
they'll eat you for breakfast
and save your hands for dessert
it's a plan for the worst
if you think that you deserve it
if you think you're worth more
than speak profound for the wordless
don't look down when you're nervous
these words will burn through your dermis
fight for what it's worth
our souls patrol for what's important
it's your soul that has a purpose
it's your right and you deserve it
speak for what you love
for love confirms the earth's performance

I sit quiet
trying to describe
the thoughts on my mindset
but i'm silent
and my thoughts aren't quite sounding right yet
and my silence is being charged as a knife
like a forged threat
now i'm forced to regret
everything i just said
and i'm stuck on the fence
does this make me defenseless ?
am i lost if i don't know where e x a c t l y this fence is?
it's senseless to me to defend all of my mentions
I'm just trying to find truth
behind these false pretenses

If corporate Dems tell me about how 'We all do better when we all do better'...
Or about how 'It's not about class, it's about coming out for Dems'...
Or about how, 'No one identifies with the working class' or 'nobody wants to identify with the working poor'...
I say to you, WE ARE THE WORKING POOR.
Look at the stains on their clothes, listen to their words, look at the rugged callous of their hands, who amongst us can last a job loss, or wage cut, or a car blow out?
None of us, cept the 1%.
We are the precariat class, the proletarian class.
I say to you, the working poor and homeless are the 'emarginati', the literal marginal ones, the ones at the edges of society.
But who, honestly, isn't at the edge???
The Democratic gubernatorial candidate turned carpet-bagging Congressional goon, Bank of America executive turned-state-CFO Alex Sink embodies the centrist-right neoliberal dogma of 'business-rules', who cares about immigrants besides those who 'clean our hotels and do our landscaping'.
Brand-imaging, quaffed corporate Dems are why the two-party system in broken.
Both parties are sell-outs to capital, and they think we don't know.
We know, and we remember.
Neoliberal capitalism of 'Washington Consensus' imposed on the rest of humanity will fall.
I just hope we wise up as a republic in the mean time.

To elaborate on what Chris Hedges (the liberal who loves to play radical during uprisings) wrote in the Occupied Wall Street Journal concerning the goal of the Occupy Wall Street movement: “The goal to us is very, very clear. It can be articulated in one word—REBELLION. … What the elites fail to realize is that rebellion will not stop until the corporate state is extinguished.”
To that, I say this:
If you are sick and tired of living in the land of the 'free',
in the land of plenty,
while you see injustice
and poverty
and suffering,
then stand up.
Join a local chapter of Occupy,
join any progressive group.
If you don't see these things,
PLEASE WAKE UP.
READ, look and listen,
to the world around you,
rather than a TV, an Iphone,
or some talking head.
The deep inequities in life exist for a reason.
Capitalism, that oh so familiar 'greed is good' mentality.
We have to transform it totally,
beginning with a plea for rebellion.