Hallelujah

Hallelujah I’m a bum
the song went and then:
Hallelujah bum again
I can hear my dad singing it
around the house 
when I was nine or ten….
Hallelujah give us a hand-up 
to revive us again

it was a Wobblies’ song 
though I didn’t know
what the Wobblies were 
I thought though 
that my dad singing bum 
was a bit cheeky
did the song appeal
to insurgent anarchism?

 I soon learned the chorus
and learned too that a bum
was an out-of-work tramp 
I didn’t know the words 
vagrant or hobo
or why they were wobbly
one way or the other 
the song was a mystery

 eventually I learned a verse:
Oh why don’t you work
like other men do?
how the hell can I work when
there’s no work to do? 
dad explained unemployment 
before I knew about Wobblies 
never mind Marxism

 my political education began 
with a song and they’ve 
done the business ever since
songs and poems the same to me
Blake made tunes to his words
Shelley and Diane Di Prima wrote
poems that sing anyway
resist much obey little they say 
Hallelujah!

……………………………………………………………………..,,,,,,,,,………Jeff Cloves

  The militant international union IWW 
(Industrial Workers of the World) 
was formed in Chicago in 1905 and 
its members became known as Wobblies  
IWW published Hallelujah I’m a bum in 1908 
thereafter it was known as a Wobblies’ song
as ‘illegals’ flee Trump’s promised attack
there are likely to be 
many more bums 
in the Land of the Free
but IWW still exists 
and Hallelujah I’m a bum
is still sung now

.