ManicDDaily

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.