Analysis of 'Bosses Don't Seem Right' - A Christmas Monologue

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis 1876 (Auburn) – 1938 (Melbourne)



The thing's all wrong (I sez to ‘im)
Now look, there's this ‘ere Monday, Jim,
Comes before Christmas.  Be a toff
An' lest us ‘ave the Monday off.
‘E ‘ums an' ‘ars.  An' then he's got
To talk a lot of silly rot
Abut ‘ow business binds a man;
An' ‘e don't quite see ‘ow ‘e can
Afford to give me Monday in,
Seein' he'll lose a lot of tin
Under our capit'listic plan
Which sort of binds a business man
‘Lest his competitors was bound
To give the Monday all around.

If but (‘e sez) they would agree
To let the trade ‘ave Monday free
Then ‘e would do it.  There you are!
Shows ‘ow Democracy's a bar.
It's competition, don't you see,
That robs a man of liberty.
But, under Socialism . . . Wot?
Now, listen, I ain't talkin' rot.
I know that ‘e's me boss.  But look,
Our scheme of Gover'ment's all crook.

Now, under Socialism, see,
If I said, 'I want Monday free!'
Why, under right conditions, then,
They'd treat their men like they was men;
An' seein' it was Christmas week,
We would n't ‘ave to go an' seek
No favors.  We'd just tell ‘em flat:
'We're takin' Monday; an' that's that!'
Wot?  Bosses?  . . .  Well, I s'pose there'd be
This, wot you call, Bureaucracy.

To rule us.  Yes; per'aps there might;
An' as you say, it don't seem right
That they should want to boss a man . . . .
But wot about his Fascist plan?

Now, under that, we'd say, 'look ‘ere
Us fellers wants this Monday clear.'
An', bein' reasonable like,
Blokes would n't ‘ave to call a strike
To get their way . . . . Well, I suppose
There's be Dictators - coves like those
To fed a coot on castor oil
If they decided not to toil
On Monday.  That seems pretty tough,
All systems seems to treat men rough.


Scheme AABBCCDDEEDDFF GGHHGGCCII GGJJKKLLGG MMDD XXNNOOPPBB
Poetic Form
Metre 01111111 11111101 10110101 11110101 11111111 11011101 01110101 11111111 01111100 1110111 101011 11110101 11010011 11010101 11111101 11011101 11111111 11010001 1010111 11011100 1101001 11011101 11111111 1011111 1101001 11111101 11010101 11111111 1111101 111111111 11011111 1110111 110111111 11110100 1111111 11111111 11111101 11011101 11011111 11011101 1110001 111111101 11111101 11010111 11011101 1110111 11011101 11011111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,663
Words 316
Sentences 38
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 14, 10, 10, 4, 10
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 25
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 237
Words per stanza (avg) 67
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:41 min read
100

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet known for his humorous poems, especially "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century. Though Dennis's work is less well known today, his 1915 publication of The Sentimental Bloke sold 65,000 copies in its first year, and by 1917 he was the most prosperous poet in Australian history. Together with Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, both of whom he had collaborated with, he is often considered among Australia's three most famous poets. While attributed to Lawson by 1911, Dennis later claimed he himself was the 'laureate of the larrikin'. When he died at the age of 61, the Prime Minister of Australia Joseph Lyons suggested he was destined to be remembered as the 'Australian Robert Burns'. more…

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    "'Bosses Don't Seem Right' - A Christmas Monologue" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/6236/%27bosses-don%27t-seem-right%27---a-christmas-monologue>.

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