Jim Burns
Questions And Answers
It is the usual hungover Saturday morning,
and I am switching from one TV station to the other,
trying to locate an answer to my aching head.
I finally turn to Star Trek just in time to hear
the Captain say, ‘Well, Spock, any conclusions?’
and he replies, ‘No, Captain, just the beginning
of another theory,’ and we are with the left again
as they face up to events with one more analysis.
So, I search along the shelves for a solution,
and I see what Marx said to Engels, and Stalin to
Trotsky, and Lenin to Gramsci, and Harry Pollitt
to Willie Gallacher, and J. P. Cannon to Joseph Hansen,
and the only answer I get is that if books were
bullets the bourgeoisie would have been eliminated
long ago, and any future world paper shortage
will be the direct result of a left-wing plot.
Then I end up in the pub, hunting for the answer,
and after four pints I think I have found it, and
after eight I know I have. But I am back in the
capitalist world again, drinking beer to cure the
problems I got from drinking beer, and tomorrow I’ll
still have those same problems. There is no answer,
of that I’m convinced, but the real problem arrives
when it’s hard to recall if there’s a question.
Page(s) 65
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