Labor Day is one of those US holidays that people brush off because it’s just a Monday off and a day to get discounts at stores. But it exists as a commemoration of the Haymarket riots, which occurred in Chicago in the late 1800s and became the flashpoint for the United States workers’ movement. It’s because of Haymarket and the organizing that occurred afterwards that we have things like a 5 day workweek, vacations, sick leave, and other incredibly important benefits.

Weirdly enough, I have a poem about Haymarket, which I wrote for a weirdly specific call last year. It is, not the best thing I’ve ever written, but I like it, and it’s on theme.

No, it doesn’t rhyme.

Haymarket

In Haymarket Square in the city of Chicago there is a statue

A statue rusty red as a dried scab

Made of big, hulking bodies and overturned carts,

Big as anything,

And yet most people walk by it

Piss on it

Spray out its message with paint.

“Haymarket” they say

What’s a goddamned “haymarket.”

A goddamned haymarket is truth.

It is justice.

It is violence.

It is the Irish factory wench missing fingertips

And still burnt from O’Leary’s maligned cow.

It is the Black produce seller

Digging out shrapnel with a knife.

It is the cop who cuffed the resistance

Who silenced change.

It is seven cops and four civilians

Blood-spattered on the ground

With anonymous dynamite.

But it is more, it is more!

It is eight hours of work curtailed by law.

It is breaks, and safety checks.

It is freedom to speak,

And to stand all together in one place,

Not to buy cabbage and carrots

But to listen and hear.

Haymarket is freedom.

Haymarket is justice.

Haymarket is you and me,

You and me,

And nobody can tell us otherwise.

Happy Labor Day!

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