Poetry Corner: “What you have to look forward to or you’d best pawn that gold watch”

What you have to look forward to or you’d best pawn that gold watch

You slave for whatever dignity the weekly pay affords
Yes sir!
No sir!
And if you are lucky a pittance of a pension comes your way

Retire and read the paper all day
and stretch that cat food all the way

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “Was it better in the old country?’

Was it better in the old country?

We were in a cab last night
I was staring at the meter intently uptight
while the driver was talking to you
of stories of love and wine

Ah…..the girls of his youth
in the old country
many grey hairs less

Robert K. Stephen

COVID CURFEW HITS QUEBEC!

According to the Quebec government a COVID CURFEW comes into effect as of January 9th. The rules are as follows;

Curfew

As of Saturday, January 9, 2021, a curfew will be in effect. Between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. Quebecers must not leave their homes except in cases that justify travel.

Allowed exceptions:

  • a person whose presence in the workplace is essential;
  • a person who must obtain the necessary medications following a medical appointment;
  • a person who must go to or return from a hospital, a clinic, or a dentist’s or optometrist’s office;
  • a person who must visit  a sick or injured parent;
  • a student who must participate in a face-to-face evening class or go to a laboratory in a recognized school;
  • a parent who must accompany his or her children to the home of the other parent who has custody of them;
  • a person returning home on a night flight from a work-related trip abroad;
  • a person who must go out so that his dog can do its business;
  • a person who must accompany to a medical appointment another person who is unable to drive;
  • a parent who must accompany a sick child to the hospital;
  • a parent who must accompany an adolescent to his work.

Police officers will continue to ensure compliance with health measures and can intervene when individuals are outside their homes during curfew hours. Offenders are liable to fines ranging from $1 000 to $6 000 if they are unable to adequately justify why they are outside the home. Young people 14 years of age and over are subject to a $500 fine.

To enable individuals who are travelling during the curfew because of their work to readily demonstrate that such travel is legitimate, employers are asked to complete the “Attestation de l’employeur – Déplacement durant le couvre-feu décrété par le gouvernement du Québec” (available only in French).

Poetry Corner: “Immigration to Canada (prior to the Muslim surge) the land of milk and honey”

Immigration to Canada the land of milk and honey

Perpetual poverty exacerbated by violence
baked red necked existence in the sun
on your own soil if fortunate
always a step above landless peasantry even if technically a kulak
receiving the self contempt sentence of life
worse seeing your children condemned to the same
sweat soaked undershirts, cracked nails and donkey braying
in a miserable hovel
hunted by prig faced idiots from the capital
(ironically respected)

So the homeland spews the excess
into a buyer’s market
industrial prosperity

but to the newly arrived but to the fringes of milk and honey
washing machined flats
gold and red furniture
garish and covered in plastic
purchased after sweat shopped hours

Yet the homeland remembered fondly
which was a delusion that flicked them off like flies

Only their children may escape into a corrupted liberation
their parents mere historical anomalies culturally trapped in the values of the homeland at the time they arrived in Canada

like schizophrenic tourists

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “Slime in the back lanes”

Slime in the back lanes

Greasy bacon haired
worm rotted popularity on suburban to downtown buses
toothless and reeking of body odour
scabbed hands red from the opedial clasp of sherry bottles
decorated by black claws
that must not touch
Fleeing refugees from a napalmed society?
victims of hedonistic failure?

All depends on the current need for the heroes of misery
and funds of the welfare state

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “Apologies to our Canadian Inuit”

Apologies to our Canadian Inuit

Necessary victims of freeze dried
The white ice of deadly blue progress
no harpoon redress
trust only hastened the inevitable
amongst mineral rights and the sovereign
and commercial Arctic Ventures
spouted from dollared dentures
fishing guides for the sub 49ers
searching for Char
presents of sealskin dolls
fabricated at venerialized encampments
foistered by fiats of ministerial hacks
white sympathy or arrogance
tempered by budget allocations
remainders from ministerial vacations and Canadians promising not to eat Esk,imo Pies

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “In the interests of productive behaviour”

In the interests of productive behaviour

Motivation
goals
group dynamics
profit sharing
job satisfaction
tasty tidbits to woo the working class
bribery for the belligerent
soothed with technocratic brews
psychological trickery
blessed in the holy catacombs of management classes
where ambitious wear Hugo Boss socks (as they can’t yet afford his suits)
grovel at the swill buckets of swindled social mobility
fed by Harvard Business School priests
sacrosantly selling communion to the highest bidder
of course

Robert K. Stephen

Poetry Corner: “Evening Management Classes”

Evening Management Classes

greedy grasping suburban sniffers
assemble after work
haunted by prospects of lower class blues
fired by ambitious dreams
ontological drama forgotten
in the dance of dollars
the future of the senior management team
shines like the star of Bethlehem Steel
clamouring to absorb the techniques of worker manipulation
and win that VOLVO XC 90
respect, dignity
wholesome men and women of the community
not even the imported Italian fragrances
masks the smell of their shit

Robert K. Stephen