On Basic Income - A poem by George Elliott Clarke, 2020
The economy’s an abyss whose bottom is a grave,
And each tightrope walker wobbles as a mere wage-slave.
And those who freefall, screaming, screeching, as they go,
Clutching for handholds or toeholds, only hope to slow,
Their plummet to a crashing or a smashing that’ll whack
Wallet and skull, household and heart, for debt’s the crack—
The airy nothing through which poor and jobless catapult—
Down, down, down, to either suicide or homicide result.
Capitalism insists each citizen’s alone
To bargain with Fate and to barter blood and bone—
To work the best deal each can despite lay-off
Or disease, bankruptcy or injury, and to play off
Labourer against labourer, to suffer or succeed,
As individuals, whatever shall be the collective need.
But yet a contradiction is ever starkly evident:
Businesses can’t sell products to customers indigent.
No matter how rich the rich, the people own greater riches—
For our tax dollars are ours to fulfill all our wishes.
Why not weave ourselves a mass, protective web
To catch all who tumble, whether the poor or pleb,
Off the high-wire of capitalist high-jinks and low-down tricks,
The badly frayed ropes and the greasy balancing sticks.
Why not grant ourselves—because the people’s money’s ours—
Platforms to stand on, cushions to land on, fail-safe moors?
Time to paraphrase the bards John Lennon and Yoko Ono!
Basic Income is ours; we can have it; purely pro bono—
If we want it. We can have it if we want it—just like health care,
U.I., the baby bonus, public transit, public schools, welfare....
There’s no end to what we can do to improve our lives
Against all odds, if we’ll stand as one against capitalist thieves.
Basic Income is the price of bottom-line social equality:
So that all can ascend—escaping Poverty’s gravity.
George shares with us:
“I came to poetry primarily via the example of Bob Dylan. So, I started as a songwriter, and I still do believe that a poet can/should pen song, and I've been blessed to work with opera composers and blues and gospel and folk (and even rap: I've collaborated with Shad on one song). I do see song/lyric as amenable to political themes (as in spirituals, union songs, "protest songs", etc.) So, that's the poetics I'm pursuing in the piece.
My bio – I was the 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-2015) and the 7th Parliamentary/ Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-2017) and I’ve published 26 poetry “works” since 1983, not including 3 books in Chinese, Italian and Romanian. I’ve won a few honours, for which I’m grateful, and I’m a pioneering scholar of African-Canadian literature at the University of Toronto and have taught at Duke, UBC, McGill and Harvard. I am a 7th generation Afro-Metis of Nova Scotia.”
*** Visit George's website for more information about his life and work.
*** Download the "On Basic Income" poem here.