Karl Marx
Writing short stories about the government and the Communist party…
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They found him in the gutter,
writing short stories about the government and the Communist party,
with a slight Socialist sideline, all for the common good.
Marx made rampant calls to China, where scares of disease now spread,
he called silently without the mask of the masquerade, treading slightly above the line of appropriateness,
he didn’t care about anything but hearing a human voice, so lost nowadays in his mind; intricate thought patterns,
so lost amidst all the nonsense and confusion and the political hyperbole that he nested in.
“The thing is,” he said, “I’ve never written better, but I’ve never lost so much sleep.”
He would scratch at the door of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie,
like an alley cat, wanting to be heard,
and he dreamed of releasing the poor with his language and mood and tone
and comma and s p a c e and adjective; his prolific writing.
He dreamed that his writing would provide fellowship to survivors and the world at large.
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Marx believed that people were narcotics of time,
addicted to it’s passing along a punch clock and steadfast wearing of civilian garb,
which said ‘I am lower than thou,’ in a secretive voice,
or part of the Entrepreneurial Spirit.
When Marx got the chance he would use a payphone, in the dark, and frantically dialed the numbers that he recalled in his mind to check up on his estranged family,
who had become estranged because of the political uprising,
the winnings of his loss.
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It was better that way, he thought that money screwed people over, like Lemon Cola, just twisted enough.
A scientist, explorer, philosopher, he releases the revolutionary thought,
but he felt less of a human ‘being,’ a stranger of his own kind.
And his thoughts ran forward like a steam ship on crack cocaine,
and he wondered with swollen eyes about the worth of a human being,
which, as he predicted in the future,
could be summed up in pages of a resume stating one’s worth for employ-ability, stating your worth as you sell yourself nice and tidy.
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No one was ever employed because they spent the last 20 years selling and buying and investing in one’s self,
constantly battling wars with one’s own mind and body,
constantly worrying, hurrying, eating drought in replacement for an extra ten minutes of deprived sleep.
Marx was tired, but committed to his political fight.
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Personally, he was battling with joy and despair, facing one’s own shadow self and catching glimpses of his strength,
falling and getting up and falling again.
Marx was no stranger to the personal nor worldly coming and going, comings and goings.
But constantly being a human being didn’t find you work.
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And from an early age, Marx found anxiety, self-consciousness,the proletariat,
delusion, marriage, social expectation,
the plight of the poor and the scowl of the rich,
and this fine line of geography created between them.
Marx found class-consciousness, solitude, Engels, minority and majority,
and what waited to burst, in between.
Marx found war and struggle and his own war and struggle.
He found that soundbites often make up history.
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Marx found that being a human being doesn’t find you work.
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Anna Rozwadowska 2018
