1975: Here We Come

Holiday time and new year
time of happiness and cheer
your chance to laugh is here
a few days off work
time legitimately to shirk
the rush the train the rotten boss
to you their absence is no loss
but Guv’s will in heaven dear lord be done
more profits please this year than the last one

I want to be happy all the while
not only when I am allowed to smile
why do they have the right to say
today I work tomorrow I play

I came smiling into the world
all my friends did too
out of the womb themselves they hurled
all the wonder of so much new
I know        I saw that excitement born
each new person’s dawn

Where are they now these hopeful faces
gone I know to lonely places
but night and morning one shapeless mass
belched from their mother tube crying alas
beaten hussled deformed in pain
they never smile only complain
must it be      deep cries of earth
is that all life is worth

World awake from paralysed slumber
why permit the capitalists plunder
abundant world          yours for the taking
when you will do some waking.

Ronnie Warrington