I was the indentured servant,
Whose fare was paid
in return,
for a youth of labor
Under harsh masters
But young, and strong
And full of illusions for a New Life
In a New World
I came in steerage...hopeful
Never to return to England, or
The Deutschland
Or Norway, Sweden,
Scandinavia...
Over There to
An infancy of coal mines
Of chimney sweeping,
And textile mills
I milked their cows, worked in their fields,
And my sisters scrubbed their floors
And cleaned their house
I milked their cows, worked in their fields,
And my sisters scrubbed their floors
And cleaned their house
My callused hands
Felled the oceans of forest pine
With sharpened steel
In the New Land
And cleared the prairie
Of Tall Grass with a polished
Killing plow
We lived in mounds of sod,
beset by heat,
And blizzards...
That lasted weeks
To see the locusts devour our crops
And stubborn, to start again
We dug canals for the boats
tunnels for the city trains
and pushed, and pushed...
We pushed out the Native
from his cleared forest,
West...
Those after me brought the Old World
With them
The Tartar, Jew, the Ites,
Even the shunned Sons of Eire
Came
And were told that they
"Need Not Apply," by those of us
Who came before
To this,
The best poor-man's country...
To this,
The best poor-man's country...
They joined the blacks in cities
Who had been brought in slavers,
Interned in southern camps
Their masters called plantations
To a life of forced labor, slaves
A few who could escape, came up
A non-existent railroad
And after a proper, uncivil, slaughter
Between the white North and southern brothers,
In droves
To the industrial north
Out west, the chinks, Chinese and Japs
Slant-eyes to all
Ground out the mounts of granite
for the Iron Horse, and
Scrubbed mounds of laundry
Of the Good People
And in the war, as fodder,
Found Lost Patrols
And, doing that, lost more of theirs
than they saved
Of them
While their kinfolk lived
Behind barbed wire
In government camps
And the Mexes bent and stooped
To make the western deserts green
To make the USA
the best fed nation
North or South
While they wandered from camp to camp
And led their lives,
Feeding themselves
From hand to mouth
But during the wars
they couldn't get enough of them
To work the fields
And by train loads brought them here
And by train loads brought them here
Until the soldier boys came back
Then, like the Chinese,
Were then deported, ahem, excluded
We formed clubs, associations
Unions, then
In slaughterhouses, foundries,
Production lines,
And migrant camps
And battled Frick, and Henry Ford,
And Gallo wine
But Frick and they, and heirs
Bought out the House
The Senate, too
And told us that back East
They said
"They were paying too much,
They said that your ore ain't worth diggin'
That's its much cheaper down South American towns
Where the workers work
Almost for nothin'..."
Now, instead of importing slaves,
They send their capital there
And the workforce here,
Is asked to
"Diversify,"
To learn new skills
To "develop"
To learn new skills
To "develop"
To compete for hunger wages
With Latins, Chinese and the masses of
The Subcontinent
The fertile farmer, the laborer,
The men and women
In production lines
Can only hope their kids
Grow up and leave
Somewhere...but where?
There is no New World
Over There
There's only the Here and Now
Still "tomorrow is gonna be
Another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest..."
That's all we're trying
To get some rest