By Daniel Paiz

Since starting the 30 poems in 30 days NaPoWriMo writing challenge all those years ago, April is always the fastest month of the year. Honestly I kind of start mentally preparing to write all these NaPoWriMo pieces as early as January, and when May hits there’s a bit of confusion mucking about. It’s not that I don’t want to write after 30 days, it’s actually the opposite; I want to keep inking them out.

That’s the biggest challenge when it comes to blogging, and creating in general. Not so much the motivation needed to write (that comes and goes regardless). No, it’s the continuous content creation that both captivates and chokes one’s cerebral.

Today’s piece is in honor of those striking against wages that don’t match the effort expected. Were the majority of us made to work in said conditions, it’d become crystal clear why workers are tired and frustrated with where things are today.

May Day Poem

Those stocking shelves you rush in seconds,

those eye-rolling, sleepy-eyed workers and attendants,

you get mad over groceries, construction and triage,

they get a birthday cake once a quarter

as if that’s a fix to moral with a weak company mirage,

and then those making millions off their backs,

sweat, blood and labor, get mad when

they want another slip of hard earned paper?

 

Pagans & religious will throw cake at your highness,

worry company fertility is not today’s celebration,

it’s international worker’s recognition of how

bosses wanna eliminate them from the equation,

hire cheaper labor and then paint a picture

that’s it’s the immigrant’s faults when in fact,

people rightly scoffed at slave wages and

want you to pay EVERY worker proper dollars,

 

Stacked, the odds against the

people who clock in and lack proper PPE,

people alike receipts ranging from PhD to GEDs,

you didn’t work hard for your money,

you thoroughly sought out hard working lawyers,

so they would jump hoops for you, so on

holidays you give out Starbucks & Russell Stover’s,

history repeats itself and your greed will keel you over.