Triangle-Shirtwaist-Baldia 1911, 2012
doors chained
exits blocked
!fire!
the elevator buckles,
fire-escape collapses
women roast or leap
their bodies,
smashed, shattered
sculpted by fire or the fall
charred pick-up sticks
counted, named, mourned
by lovers and family
146 workers
laid out
on that sidewalk morgue
an unwanted mausoleum
lined with
tear and blood and a desolate dream
this mass death births law, unions,
strikes, reduced profits
the factories abandon the city
the law of maximum profit rules
riding the air-slip of gluttony, and greed
pigs after truffles
suits hunting surplus value
vampires, of the eighty-hour work week
medicated by NAFTA
union maids, law, labels, and lady liberty
are renditioned, shackled
flying Air America to points
south then east
and finally Baldia town, Pakistan
one hundred and one years from Triangle
the traveling factory, this profit making monster
with windows, doors
yes locked, barred
!fire!
314
bones broken never to love
blackened lungs never to sing
crushed skulls never to read
broken feet never to dance
three hundred fourteen dreamless bodies
never to live, to weep, to laugh
Tom Karlson says poetry and song are his weapons in the fight against injustice.
He sings with the NYC Labor Chorus.
Spread the word