Is that Revolution in the Air?
A poem by Wolf Larsen
Our ancestors begin talking all their monologues at once! There are monologues of strong mighty construction laborers who built the world & civilization! There are monologues of strong mighty stevedores who loaded & unloaded the world's ships with all the world's commerce! There are the monologues of the mighty strong factory workers who built automobiles! Everything you see created by man was created by our sweat! Our energy - our labor - our greatness produced civilization! Our energy - our labor - our sweat drove the human race into greatness! Our great cities of steel & concrete were built with our mighty arms! The fields were tilled with our sweat! Human rights were won with our blood – workers' blood!
Each generation of workers is a new generation of heroism! The heroism of erecting giant skyscrapers with our bravery – with our ingenuity – with our pride! And like the skyscrapers our pride triumphs up into the sky as we look around us and see a world created by our hands – workers' hands!
Each generation of workers is a giant monologue of frustration & anger & struggle! Each generation is millions of monologues of millions of workers all rising up together in one gigantic voice that will be a tremendous tidal wave of change! One gigantic voice that contains all the millions of monologues of all the workers whether they are black white brown yellow red Christian Muslim Jewish Buddhist or Atheist! All our frustration & anger & struggle is one giant monologue made of steel! Because we as a class are made of steel! The men who build skyscrapers who build homes who load & unload the ships are mighty heroes whose blood runs like greatness from generation to generation! The passing generations of the working class are a million voices of struggle all woven together into one great monologue that is a tidal wave of change splashing across the world tumbling down mighty empires and tumbling down the rich & powerful until the workers own the world – because the world beckons to be owned by us! We produce everything! We transport everything. We build everything. And we grow the food. The world belongs to us!
Our painting is a giant tidal wave of millions of workers' faces rising up and seizing the world which belongs to them! Our painting is a giant mural the size of the sky which showcases all our strikes & sit-ins – a giant mural that shows generation after generation doomed to poverty even though they work long loooong hours for the benefit of the privileged. A giant mural painted with the heroic struggles of immigrants fighting for their place in America. A giant mural painted with century after century of black slavery – and century after century of black resistance to that very same slavery. A giant mural showing the children of the working class going to bed hungry. A giant mural showing older workers who labored their entire lives for the benefit of others abandoned to poverty and an early death once their bodies are too old and worn out for work. A giant mural showing women workers as great goddesses who give birth to the next generation of workers, women who often stood at the shoulders of their husbands against the bayonets & billy clubs of the hired hooligans sent to beat them into submission. A giant mural showing women as equals of men. A giant mural showing blacks as equals to whites. A giant mural showing immigrants as equals to nativeborn. A giant mural showing gays & lesbians as equals to heterosexuals.
Between the ruling class of billionaires & politicians & dictators and the working class there is a giant Grand Canyon larger than any on Earth!
I hereby give permission for this poem to be published anywhere in full or in part by anyone as long as Wolf Larsen is credited as the sole author, and as long as the intent of the publisher is not hostile.