Twas the week before Christmas, when my wife retired
She looked at her job and said, “Job, you are fired!”
For decades she cared for ‘the man’ and his flack,
But ‘the man’ and the job did not love her back.
--
Though I too have wrestled with pretense and might,
These quiescent visions they give me a fright;
So mamma in her repose and I in my doubt,
Will flip-flop the flap to thus figure things out,
--
Do I march keeping step with nary a clatter?
Or blunder and misstep as mad as a hatter?
‘Cause that’s how I’m seen all contentious and wrong,
When I point at injustice and don’t go along.
--
Impugned and distressed by the bombast and blow
All the bluster designed to maintain status quo,
And, what to my wandering mind should appear,
But my miniature pay, and ‘the man’ insincere,
--
With a system to drive it, make everything click,
‘The man’ in his moment, conniving and slick.
More rapid than bias injustice it came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
--
“Now, Wage Freeze! now, Wealth Gap! Deceit and Oppression!
Entitled Malfeasance! on, Turgid Expression!
From misguided dictates! To heartless tradition!
Bureaucracy backlash and selfish ambition!”
--
As one grieves the inequities, mischief, and lies,
When they meet with resistance they dehumanize,
So out of the workforce the minions retreat,
Both fighting the good fight and suffering defeat.
--
And then, in an inkling, a notion, a spark,
A dancing and gnawing that lit up the dark.
A glimpse as it spun by, it was Beauty in youth,
It was Wisdom and Justice and finally Truth.
--
It was gone just as quick, in its place stood ‘the man’
He was garnished with whistles and waving his plan;
A bundle of edicts he'd flung on his back,
And he huffed and he puffed and began spewing flack.
--
His eyes – how they crinkled! his simple mind wary!
His cheeks were inflamed and his tone was contrary!
His droll little mouth quoting chapter and verse,
His speech clipped and brusque, and sententious and terse;
--
Some grumble-grump hype and a kick in the teeth,
And the smarm that encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a god-plex and those little round thoughts,
Officious and proud, like a zebra with spots.
--
You are grubby and mean, a right nasty old elf,
And I laugh at your antics, so full of yourself;
You are not entitled, your power's from fear,
Belief is not fact and tradition’s last year;
--
‘The man’ is composite, ‘the man’ is the job,
The system, the process to manage the mob,
‘The man’ knocks us down, ‘the man’ does not dance,
The man’s not a man, he's a sad circumstance;
--
So I'll renounce the pay and I'll ignore the whistle,
And away I will fly like the down of a thistle,
And you'll hear us exclaim as we excise this blight,
Happy sojourns to all, and to all a good-night!
