Jules Bastien-Lepage, French
Milt Was Starting To Wonder Whether His Promotion To Branch Manager Really Was a Vertical Move, 1881
Oil on canvas
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Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived if necessary), here, here, here, here, here, here (archived if necessary), here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated French Wikipedia page has more).
/// Grandpère finds himself in quite a fix.
He was told his new job’s “Pick Up Sticks.”
His granddaughter exclaims
“You said we would play games!”
Now his back and his neck both have cricks.
/// His old back is bent under the weight
of these branches. He curses his fate.
And the child cannot help;
(she’s a tiny weak whelp).
He may never again stand up straight.
/// He cannot quit this job; he is broke.
But his pay is a pittance— a joke.
Much of what he has earned
will as firewood be burned,
so his “profits” will go up in smoke.
/// We should pity this hard working man,
whose cruel life is a base, brutal span.
Long he labors in pain.
Hopes for succor in vain.
Death’s his only retirement plan.
/// Thoreau wrote about lives, telling why it
is true most men despair but stay quiet.
But perhaps they ought not.
If their lot is a plot
by exploiters, downtrodden should riot.
/// To this quandary there’s no slick solution.
True, it’s rare there’s a fair revolution
where it’s won in a rout
and not later sold out.
Better push for change through evolution.
/// Can we trust “the eye of the beholder”?
Scan the face ‘neath the wood on his shoulder.
It’s upsetting to see
how, since he left TV,
comic genius Jon Stewart got older.