The Ordinary Working Man

The ordinary working man

works from 8 to 5 each day --

on minimum wage.

Minimum, equals the lowest rate allowed by law

set by professionals earning more than twice the amount they've pegged.

Minimum --
not exactly enough

for the wage-earner's needs

but minimum simply because

it is the maximum that

the employer and the State

agree to lose;

while those who use the working man as tools

entitle to themselves no maximum to the minimum they need

The ordinary working man

works 5 to 6 days a week

some up to 7 days, even on

graveyard shifts,

4 to 5 weeks of every month

of every year;

he and she,

strive without sufficient rest from

unending daily toil on minimum wage.

They don’t have breaks of leisure as

some enjoy,

they don't have sabbaticals nor jubilees

nor extended leaves credited to

their masters who

can fly, can drive, can ride, can dive

and live the times of their lives

in beaches, resorts, hotels, casinos, galleries, ships, rails and parks;

while the ordinary working man's

content with  telenovela and karaoke art.

You and I may not count ourselves among

those who perpetrate,

but inaction makes us peers who perpetuate.

Is this the Almighty's wonderful plan

for the ordinary working man --

of Him Who decreed righteousness and justice

as early as the patriarch Abraham?

How can we sleep without tossing in our heads

the questions

of the graveyard-shifting ordinary working man?

Who is brave enough to act and answer "no"

without losing sleep, sanity nor faith

for the ordinary working man?

The Potato Eaters by Vincent Van Gogh
"You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor and — that they have thus honestly earned their food." - Van Gogh