The Poor Man's Work Ethic

When I was young the values I lived out
were the poor mans' work ethic of working hard 
to stay poor, and when work failed completely
doing government paid for displacement activities,
including further education, to remain active.
Whilst making my acquired cheapness work for me.

There the main purpose of my activities
was to keep me reaching towards the horisons
I could see, that retreated, the nearer I got to them.

I found my way out of this grown up version
of smothercare when I going nowhere slowly
by my being accepted by a world with no family
behind me, where my main experience of work
was the catch 22 logic of not getting jobs
from a market that was set to refuse me.

Nowadays I don't scrabble after money with any effort.
I live within my means and my greatest sense of reward
comes from having survived long term unemployment,
and the poor man's work ethic, with my mind intact.

Marxism Today

There is a lot of sadness
that I can't do anything about.

If I focus on it too much
then I carry the feelings
that I know do me no good
and do not change the world.

My respite is remember Karl Marx
'History happens first as tragedy
then it repeats itself as farce',

If I look back to the first times
of a particular event they become the original,
but by now well worn, tragedy.
When it is repeated become farce.

Whatever the bathos of an event,
with how the farce repeats itself
this proves that the worst that can happen
is that we are the butt of a cosmic joke.

Survive that and we can survive anything.