(The USA should have a Boxing Day for all our laborers who had to work yesterday)
Like a troublesome jigsaw puzzle
Life may be similar
But too large to see
The big picture
So I just enjoy
Fitting together little pieces
And forget about life itself
Here’s a segment of history:
Joe Hill’s execution in 1915
Interested me
In 1965
And again in 2015
Decades of belting out
“I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill”
Now, able to magically play it
On my ukulele
(Only four chords, of course)
As the aging voice
Sings the song
So okay, history…
Thought he was
Merely
A union organizer
For the copper miners
Executed for a crime
He says he didn’t commit
I won’t belabor that
I wasn’t there
But we know
Thanks to History
How that goes for protestors
Who need to be “disappeared”
Anyway, bored one night
Followed his virtual path
Discovered
He was a poet and songwriter
(Why didn’t I know that?)
So then I find the I.W.W Songs
You know, the Wobblies
The Little Red Book
Online
And because of my Medicare woes,
Boringly detailed in a previous poem,
Because of that, I
Find myself emerging from the
Underground maze
A place I hid in for years
In silence
Smiling, nodding, tippity-tapping
In order to keep the jobs
Hiding the big secret
That I’ve always been angry
About the injustice of any government
Toward the working poor
Like me
Despite a college degree
In mid-life
Yet always a bottom feeder, salary-wise
So I pull myself out of the underground
Into the open, wild flower field of truth
And I find a song in the Little Red Book
Written by Joe Hill
“Rebel Girl”
Be still my heart
A song written for me
And you who are poor
Despite working more and more
And I know
I’ll always be a rebel girl
Above or underground
All right, I’m getting on with my “thesis”
How the synergy of one topic
One little puzzle piece
Connects
I call it
Dovetailing:
Music, Biography, History, Poetry, Politics
And full-circle to Music
Rebel Girl is back
It’s the 60s, at least in my inner life, again
And yes, for all you readers who
Hung in there with my tiradic poem
This personal dovetail is part of the big picture of
My life
But also yours…
(c) 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
FROM JOE HILL’S REBEL GIRL (thanks to ultimate-tabs.com):
G C G (G7)
Yes, her hands may be hardened from labor,
C Cm G
And her dress may not be very fine;
G C G
But a heart in her bosom is beating
A7 D (D7)
That is true to her class and her kind.
SEE REBEL GIRL SONG SUNG BY CATHY RICHARDSON/ARRANGED BY BUCKY HALTER (YOUTUBE VIDEO):
https://youtu.be/L0Oc-CXJu0A
poeturja 