A Saturday before Christmas,
               too slow for the Cake Walk,
               I settle for an armchair,
               observe the elevator’s
                          constant stream, the Canteen fringe,
                          the Market Entrance and the host.

Here’s happiness, and the clamour of it
the dialectics of nesting, anticipation’s
              teeming growl, families with common
              cause, an even-tempered fusion, all ages,
ethnicities, at forage according to their need;
              wheeling it all back home, furnishing
                          fresh places, a nook, a niche, a room,
                          a life! According to their means.

This is the International new-born,
              people together, awake and wanting better,
                         who trust in Conviviality to keep the Peace;
                         gently to turn the Old World upside down.
 
 
Mike Bannister wrote this poem to mark the Karl Marx bicentennial last year. Born in Alvechurch, Worcestershire, following military service, he worked in community schools, mostly in the inner cities. He now lives in Suffolk with his wife and chairs Cafe Poets, a venue for working poets in his hometown of Halesworth. Publications: Greenstreet Fragments (2003), Pocahontas in Ludgate (2007), Orinsay Poems (2012), The Green Man (2014) and Late Poems (2007-2016). His work has appeared in magazines regionally and nationally, earning a variety of awards and commendations.

Poetry on the Picket Line is a squad of like-minded poets putting themselves about to read their work on picket lines, in the spirit of solidarity. Invitations to rallies etc. welcome, contact facebook.com/pg/PicketLinePoets. The new Poetry on the Picketline anthology is available at culturematters.org.uk www.culturematters.org.uk/index.php/shop-support/our-publications/item/2895-poetry-on-the-picket-line.