Thinking About Scott Walker in Eleven Haiku
Thinking About Scott Walker in Eleven Haiku
Why workers joined? Locking them in from smoking breaks
was worth their death by fire.
One hundred and twenty-three petticoats; twenty-three shirts–
what a waste–
Some will abase themselves for money. I’m not talking about
employees.
How about I scotch pensions? Will you give me
one hundred mill?
Chicken farmers are not allowed to balk. They talk? No
bucks, far worse fowl–
The Company Store kept them in the mines, all spent
before even coughed up.
So. At least, garment workers crushed in Bangladesh
had the right to work.
Maybe… we degrade education, no one will know enough
to know–
Hey! Who likes teachers anyhoo? Says the guy who could never
finished school.
Who can I cut? What can I gut? What hard-fought battle can I
betray?
What future can I flush? And since you’re flush–another
hundred mill, please?
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Very much a draft poem for Grace’s prompt on With Real Toads to write something in the style of Marilyn Chin. This was influenced by a series of one-line haikus she wrote–each of the above 17 syllables.
Process note, especially for those outside the U.S.: Scott Walker is a GOP (Republican) candidate for President of the U.S. His claim to fame as Governor of Wisconsin is breaking down unions and attacking the University of Wisconsin, through budget cuts,targeted attacks on professors (especially it seems those with an environmental outlook) and attacks on the institution of tenure (though this is actually enshrined in the Wisconsin State constitution.) He is supposedly the chosen candidate of the Koch Brothers, oil billionaires, who plan to spend hundreds of millions in upcoming elections. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 was a factory fire in New York City which 123 women garment workers and 23 men died largely because they were locked into their factory floors.
Poultry farming is a big business in the U.S., with actual farmers under the thumb of big corporate chicken producers. An interesting clip on this subject by Jon Oliver may be found here.
Composite pic is mine–all rights reserved; no copyright infringement intended in underlying pic.
Explore posts in the same categories: news, poetry, UncategorizedTags: against the union-busters poem, http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com, Let U. of Wisconsin be poem, manicddaily, Scott Walker in 11 haiku, Workers Formed Unions For a Reason
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ManicDDaily 
June 14, 2015 at 9:30 pm
The first two are heartbreaking while the last two made me recall why I hate politics ~ I appreciate the process notes as I am not familiar with US politics ~ And its not surprising to me that such a candidate would be backed by rich businessmen ~
Thanks for participating with Sunday’s Challenge K and wishing you happy week ~
June 14, 2015 at 11:16 pm
This is devastating to read… I wonder how they get people to vote against their own good… I think these one line sentences work very well, and got me thinking about Ginsberg as well.
June 15, 2015 at 1:45 am
It is really unbelievable the way things are going in the Western world these days — battles we thought had been fought and won long ago become necessary again. Is it a cyclical pattern of some kind? I wish you would post this one all over social media, print it out and leave it in shopping malls, stick it under the windscreen wipers of parked cars, pin it up to public notice-boards, send it to Letters to the Editor of all major newspapers…. And I don’t even live in your country! But I live in the Western world. xx
June 15, 2015 at 7:50 am
As distasteful as politics can be … your haiku bring a sense of the palatable to this circus. Gonna be an interesting 2016😜
June 15, 2015 at 8:34 am
Remind you of the way that workers were treated once in our country, and surely those in power (wealth) would love it to be again – can they buy an election. Surely. If enough of us let them.
June 15, 2015 at 8:44 am
I am a huge fan of any form of protest poetry, especially when written by someone with an active social conscience. The bitterness of tone serves to highlight the very real threat that we all face the world over when money and big business stir the pot of politics.
This line hit me where it hurts, since the standard of South African education has dropped considerably in the last 20 years:
Maybe… we degrade education, no one will know enough
to know–
June 15, 2015 at 9:45 am
You really hit every nail on the head here, k. The creation of a serf class is well into its roll, and Walker is the man who’s been picked to pilot that ship for the ‘captains of industry’ who have bought our country. If anything, we are not outspoken or bitter enough about the rights we are steadily losing, drip by drip. Thanks for exploring this form, and doing such a great job with it.And for speaking out.
June 15, 2015 at 10:43 am
If I’d known where the piece was going, I would have tried to make it sharper, but you know how these things go–then I thought–well, better to say something! I so dislike Walker–he either intellectually dishonest, or just vacant. I will give him the credit of being smart enough to be intellectually dishonest.
On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 10:45 AM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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June 15, 2015 at 1:35 pm
I’m impressed. I don’t think that I could bear to think about Scott Walker through the writing of 11 haiku. What does it say about a political party when Walker is one of the saner, more moderate options?
And, I should have known you were a fellow Jon Oliver fan!
June 15, 2015 at 1:42 pm
Ha. I don’t know that he is so moderate though!
I don’t have a TV and so don’t see Oliver as much as I’d like too–when I think of it–but he is so good, and I’ve actually run into him on the street in NYC two times! He was very gracious both times. (I told him I was a fan!) k.
On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 2:35 PM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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June 15, 2015 at 6:44 pm
The delivery of each thought in these set apart yet connected lines is very powerful, K.
June 15, 2015 at 8:13 pm
Thank you, Hannah. k.
June 15, 2015 at 6:46 pm
Outstanding commentary in these lines. Nicely done!
June 17, 2015 at 3:52 pm
The way you played with “smoke” and “fire” in the first line was unbelievable. From then on the poem just got better. I have read about this guy. Thanks, great poem.
Greetings from London.
June 17, 2015 at 3:58 pm
Thanks so much, Cubano.
June 21, 2015 at 7:48 pm
pardon my french, but fuck every one of those shills – walker, cruz, trump, ad nauseum. and I do mean nauseum. ~
June 21, 2015 at 8:04 pm
Hey Michael, I pardon your French. Thanks. K.