Socialist Sonnet: No.191 May Day (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

May Day

This feast day of Joseph the Artisan,

Liberated for Labor from the Church

When congregations of workers began

Gathering to confront the capital rich.

An infamous Haymarket bomb, a hail

Of police bullets, then the hangman’s rope

Demonstrated reasoned reforms would fail:

Workers must make and pursue their own hope.

Now, fourteen decades after the event,

Collective hopes remain unrealised,

So many parties, despite their intent,

Have left capital’s spirit unexorcised.

Yet potential power is marked by May Day,

Of workers turning history their way.

 D.A.