Where is this freedom
Promised me
When first they told me
Work makes free?
I look around
And know I’m lost –
What’s free I buy
At such a cost
No youth, enjoyment
Holidays
Solid employment
Only pays
In minted coin
As all are robbed
Of our free time
We’re bobbed and jobbed
And pensioned off
Freely to freeze
As Winter brings us
To our knees
A lifetime spent
In servitude
While taking care
To save on food
Essentials only
Frugal thrift
Is hardly free
To those who drift
Through twilit streets
And shopping malls
In suits and boots
Or overalls
No longer knowing
Why they strive
For Freedom finds
Few left alive
Katherine Shirley 