Targets, London 1850

The dullest of records were

old Factory Reports bound, called “Blue

Books”. List of figures, translations of workers'

lives tossed about in debate

and later boredom. Members

of Parliament used these for target

practice (the force of their

firearm measured by the numbers

of pages pierced) or

took them home and for a “bob or two”

sold them.

The difference here never more clear.

Karl Marx prowling about cheap shops (as I do)

found them. Home at Dean St, Soho

worsening poverty, impossible noise in too

small a space, of family he helped to create.

For this, did he secretly blame

the woman Jenny

—shout ungraciously, slam

the door, seeking peace elsewhere?

Each day to forget the painful

boils and piles he sat on, his eyes

piercing the pages.

Seeing at last, the picture whole. Das Kapital

The book, the analysis

the weapon. Inside that great

hush, the British Museum Reading Room

Beyond its walls, the noisome

wretchedness

of poor and working folk; and the target

—ending it!

BY CONNIE FRAZER

From Green Left Weekly, May 29, 2002.

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From GLW issue 494