We Don't Want Bosses, Period
We don't want bosses of any kind,
period.
They've already splashed around
in our blood,
already feasted plenty
on our lives.
Stop asking us so many questions.
Look at our injuries
the damage done to peasants
and miners.
We've gotta yank this plant out of the world
once and for always.
Don't ask anything else of us. We've really
made up our guts.
We don't want bosses
because they're
the same as ever;
because they want the land
all for themselves,
because they never stop
robbing, trampling
and killing, killing
day and night under every kind of sky.
_________________________
translated by Jack Hirschman from the Italian
Ferruccio Brugnaro
FIST OF SUN
Curbstone Press, 1998
Ferruccio Brugnaro worked for 30 years —
most of his adult life — in an industrial park of
chemical factories in the Porto Marghera district of Venice.
Well known as a worker-poet he shared his poems for years,
printed in mimeo format, to workers at the factory and in many
schools he visited. Poet & translator Jack Hirschman chose for this
collection from three previous books by Brugnaro: We Must Want To,
The Silence Doesn't Rule and The Clear Stars of These Nights.
Born in Mestre Italy in 1936, Ferruccio Brugnaro has retired from
the factory shift and now devotes his full-time to writing.
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