Time for Robin Hood, Bonnie and Clyde!

Just read over half of Amerikan kids
live below the poverty line -
Putin has plundered the Russian masses
until they live on less than the average Indian.
We've all grown up playing Monopoly -
just a friendly game, eh?
The winner takes everyone else's money
& finally sits bored by the board
their friends all pissed off losers now.

Karl Marx hit the mark
a century ago - man
his descendants should get a share
of those Monopoly game profits.

in Kanada we've got Stephen
the Spoiler Oiler king -
When the rich forget the social contract
... which means at least the pretense of equality -
it's time for the outlaws to straighten things out
kick over the board games
we all play with our lives.

We need Bonnie & Clyde again
machine guns spraying hot lead
at the bourgeoisie!
We need Robin Hood and his merry men
banging arrows at our Sheriffs of Nottingham.

Banks need to be robbed and burned.
The one percent hanged from lampposts.
The rich corpse MoFos are sneering
while we do nothing.

BURN BABY, BURN!
WHEN DO I GET MY TURN?
or will we turn on the tube, sit there bored
let their paid pipers continue to call the tune?


Chris Faiers


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On 2015-01-17, at 7:19 PM, Conrad DiDiodato wrote:

Conrad DiDiodato has left a new comment on your post "Time for Robin Hood, Bonnie and Clyde!":

I hear you, brother

I'd take some comfort in the declining oil & gas profits except that the gov't pigs have been growing so fat on oil revenue any slump in that sector is going to hurt us all. I see a recession coming.

I'd like to see us all go back to days of neighborliness and charity of the heart: the kind that springs naturally from the heart. I'd like a return to real social justice where we can rely more on each other than government. Is that too utopian? Gov't largess is stingy, cold and tied to too much bureaucracy.

I see, above all, the evil of materialism taking seed in the souls of the young. I am witnessing the emergence of a soulless generation of self-entitled consumers whose social compass reaches no farther than the next iPhone model.

I'd like to see, like you, new revolutionaries (of whatever stripe) with vision and real social conscience. Men/women driven like prophets and seers to tear down the existing order and design a better, more just and compassionate world than the one presently run by the "MoFos [who] are sneering/while we do nothing".



Posted by Conrad DiDiodato to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 17 January 2015 at 16:19

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Many thanks for the support & sharing the vision, Conrad   ;  ) As a teacher, you have a front row seat to the new generations, so your concerns and analysis are very valid, if disheartening. As an old 'leftie' fart, I'm not sure what to do apart from writing my bad poetry & posting it. I did send this piece to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, altho usually they just publish archaic poetry from the days of the CCF etc. .    

Yes, we desperately & urgently need more 'mad prophets' & 'revolutionaries of whatever stripe'. The irony is, it's in the interests of the ruling elites to share the wealth before people start taking it back from them violently.  But ... as always they're too stupid and greedy to see this.

I guess iPhones etc. have become the new self-lobotomizing tools of choice, in addition to widescreen TVs and of course our computers.

peace & poetry power with a mad gleam in our eyes!
Chris ... & Chase Wrfffffffffffffffffff!
 
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I decided that as some kind of People's Poet (peephole's poet?) I should post this poem on the 'rants & raves' section of Craigslist. Here's a response (all CL responses are anonymous):

In almost every revolution - a populist putsch for the poor!

We hang the top one percent... And 98 and 99%, who's grouped together and befuddled the poor into thinking they were on the side of the poor, blithely step up and replace them...

And the beat rolls on.

Do you have a better suggestion that doesn't entail two bad things trying to create something good?

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Thanks for the lucid & insightful reply  :  ) This poetic rant wrote itself in about 10 minutes this aft. It may be a bit too volatile or dogmatic, or trying to say too much in a few words. I intuit these are becoming very scary times, & most peeple are sleepwalking thru them. It's not just the economic & class inequities which are coming to a head, now there's the whole religious situation as well.

The penny is dropping for me that the two old Cold War rivals are both broke, & what better for the ruling classes (however defined) than to pit their peeple against each other as common enemies. Crank up the good old war machine! Maybe we're lucky so far the ISIS extremists are offering a convenient diversion to keep these old rivals apart.

When I was a kid in the 1950s I read THE WANTING SEED about a dystopian future where the imperial powers send their troops to the front lines to kill each other. No one survives the front lines. Great population control, & big bucks for the military industrial complex.

Anyway, hopefully it's good to stir 'the peeple' into using their brains from time to time with our posts on R&R!

- Chris

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Ed Baker has left a new comment on your post "Time for Robin Hood, Bonnie and Clyde!":

gotta go-at-things
just
one person at a time

nothing
much
ever
happens
in
a

crowd
( "soulless generation" ? it goes far-be:yawned where "soul" has any religious connotations...

our Poets, who should be leading the charge, ain't doing an whole lot to assuage the [ situation]

and have sunk into their own brand of Soulless Poetry.

try on for size Henri's 1920: The Art Spirit


Posted by Ed Baker to Riffs & Ripples from ZenRiver Gardens at 18 January 2015 at 09:25

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Wonderful response Chris.  I believe our writers will impact
and swell this new consciousness that the world under its
present system is untenable for most.   We hunger for change,
for fairness, decency and the sustenance of all peoples.
Thanks for exposing this and encouraging all to work for
unity and respect.
Katherine L. Gordon

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From: Chris Faiers
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 11:29 AM
To: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Subject: Re: [National Office] Time for Robin Hood, Bonnie & Clyde (bad poem, but better than anything else I've read in your mag)

Many thanks, Jason  : )
The Monitor always has insightful & well researched material, but the old-fashioned poetry weakens the overall tone of the mag. My friend Sylvia is a long time supporter of CCPA - me, in retirement I'm now too poor to financially support the causes I believe in. Sadly, I'm economically limited by Old Age Security to choosing between eating or paying dues to progressive causes.

Thanks again for forwarding my poetic rant - it's on my blog, & I even posted it on the Toronto Craigslist under 'rants & raves' - some interesting & surprisingly favourable responses from both sources!

peace & poetry power!
Chris (Faiers)

zenriver@sympatico.ca

if you're ever bored and feel like surfing, check out my blog, Riffs & Riffles from ZenRiver Gardens:

http://riffsandripplesfromzenrivergardens.blogspot.com/

some great progressive poetry there (most not by me), as well as commentary on CanLit, Canculture, Buddhism, rural retreats, etc.

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On 2015-01-20, at 10:45 AM, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives wrote:

Hi Chris,

I will send this to Stuart Trew, Editor of the Monitor.

Thank you,

Jason


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