Old Song of the Heart Broken Working Man
I was a rail worker
workin’ the C & O line
‘cross the Chesapeake
in that hot tin-roof new august
the air, muggy like livin’ in water
Sweat runnin’ down my knuckles, greasin’ my arms to action, tattooin’ my shirt and pants and face with yellow clouds of dry dirt
the air was filled with grunts from effort laden lungs and the steely percussions of iron hammers fallin’, and sometimes
we were singin’ hymns
other times the jail house chain gang blues
and sometimes we worked on in silence
waitin’ to be struck down by our sudden obsolesces
‘cause the world decided it could build a better man
I was a lumber jack
left foot up hill, right foot down,
in western Oregon
reddened cheeks by mid-morning shadows
walking in the deep perfume of old growth and vegetation
rotting to be reborn
callused palms to the tar worn axe handle
strike, strike, striking at my ringed and wounded heart of white pine
crying crystalline tears
until the work was done
and I saw there were no more hearts left beating
no bleeding left in the wound
I was a descamisados -
made my way up from Lobos, Argentina
to the mad dog rig in El Golfo de Mejico
a skipped big rock distance from Louisiana’s shore
He a Creole name Edmonde, that one there a black Dominican named Jack, he a gringo boss man whipping us to work with curses
names us all mother fuckers like we his orphan child
we trip pipe all day, throw chain, labor over the big wet wrenches of our trade
till the black mud come up from the pipe and cover us like tears of the virgin
until the shift bell rings and the sun sets flat against
El Mar, el color del oro
casting fire over the derrick, gang planks, tower, and the roughnecks
like everything was made to burn.
I was a dockworker
in port side Chicago
the great lights of the dying waterfront industrial
at my back
leaning hard against the greedy
grasping
machine gun
gales of lake Michigan
cradling a stuck and burning match
in my hands
but it went out
despite everything
it went out
leaving me only smoke
chasing it’s self out over the black formless water
These hands
gave me my place amounts men
and a warm meal and a few bucks spendin’ for the weekend
These hands
that could be tender despite themselves
could caress a woman’s arm while she slept
I thought they were strong enough
I have always prized them
these hands,
all I have in the whole world,
I always believed
they would be enough
