Old Song of the Heart Broken Working Man

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

The Revolutionist's Son

My father told me while loading his gun
“Drink Scotch, Whiskey, Vodka and Rum
‘cause this world, my boy, weighs a fuckin’ ton
and someday soon you’ll have to carry it son.”

Either/Or

Either/Or

I can type with one hand while the other
feeds me smoke
like burning fields feed the air
an ivory body

I can pray with one
word
and curse with the next
trusting a God who knows
the heart which utters
devotion and betrayal
is at least honest

I sit amounts friends
and weep from loneliness
and walk down an alley
married to
a woman
as she removes the window screen
extends her small arm out into the night
plays with darkness between her fingers

can I leave my love
out of love
for love

comedy
and tragedy are the same face
light falls and recognizes

one
then the other

life is a joke told at funeral

Happiness
is three matches left
for two cigarettes

Tribute

Tribute

I was borrowed this joy
was given this unexpected happiness undeserved

by a composer, McKenzie
who I am teaching to break dance
and who was the first to tell me the worst was over

by a brother, Erik
who let me sleep on his floor for two weeks, doesn’t shy from my embarrassed grief
by his wife, Sarah
who wraps me in hugs at each meeting, a wordlessness love more real than any open declaration of love

by a sister, Wendi
who fights so hard to be my friend,
and her husband, Nova
who loves her and unexpectedly completes our family

by my mom, Jamie
who calls to check up on me, who tells me I am lottery ticket
and lets me pretend to help her with her cleaning accounts

by my little bro, Boomer
who tackles me during soccer and apologize for all this fucked up shit

by my best friend, Andy
who forgives me the weakness I have worked so hard at hiding from him for all these years

by his wife, Meg
who volunteers to help jess fill out the divorce papers


by my class mate, May
who risks everything, everything, everything
to show me I am worth the risk

by my friend, Larry
who does not charge me for leasing his couch

by a girl on the east coast  
who wrote my grief-stricken curriculum
and tucks me into the bed I once shared

by the six cigarettes left in the pack
and the hot one in my hand
and the cool tall boy of 21 Steel Reserve
because it is slow brewed for exceptional smooth flavor
By Otis Redding and The National
and Gram Green for his whisky priest

by God who I still confess a wise father
giver of perfect gifts.

Poem on the subject of Jack Kerouac

Poem on the subject of Jack Kerouac

Jack’s down with Blake: You know that grain of sand shit.

He look over city streets as a farmer
his plot
grimacing at the weeds
but in love with them as well

He reads these poems in the morning paper
over coffee and beneath bold headlines titled
bank robbery, Building construction-demolition, and the obituary page
Loving father of three; a memorial

He reads these poem in bus stop scribbles
in the neon painted cartouche
letters climbing the latticework of walls
Chaka, Salue, GRIM,13th St. Kings. BSV and BREAK

He reads them, these poems
in the streetlights beneath their pyramid glow
and the pin prick stars
with violent wonder how that if we sit on the pit-bottom ocean floor of the black, black universe. the cosmos above us
those infinite fathoms that rest over us but do not crush us
but allow us to go on our hum-drum way

He hears these poems in sirens, in the slamming of doors
the rumbling of garbage trucks, hy-draul-ic hisssssssss
in the undulating subway floor
in the heartbroken cries of freight trains passing
calling the mountains to us

He hears these poems in the jabber of slang-tongued youths,
in the cat call and street fights curses
in the acccch-pt of a man spiting into the gutter
and the terse metronome of a woman’s high heel quick-step j-walk
in the gulping groans of naked strangers out bedroom windows in that tepid summer air
even if alone, he imagines them
maybe they are stranger to themselves or maybe not but sometime he imagines them so

He touches these poems, they are coarse and indifferent, cool like concrete
they are the soles of shoes, worn out and resoled
they are sharp like the chipped teeth of broken alley glass
sometimes, they are ice like fashioned metal bars
Other times they burn to touch

He recognizes stanzas, verses, odes in the landlords, hooded hustlers
and restless single mothers
in the migration negro as he etches out identity denied him by an indignant history
in 6’five transvestites
and shortest distance between-points businessmen
and, and, and the girls in short dresses with hoop earrings
so round they could pass up her arm to the shoulder
in handcuffs, billy clubs and corruption the righteous try to name the two am gin joint jazz

He smells them out
a bloodhound for the perfume of blood and piss and sweat and sex
the urban bouquet, squalid aroma and beautifully rank

They sit, these poem before him like before a portraitist
in park benches, slumbering beneath pedestrian walks
They lie naked in an uneasy sleep

Poems turn to him
and hurriedly travel passed
brought before his feet everyday
disguised in a different face
a foreign voice
A thousand different citizens of word

He confesses
recognizes
you, you, you
I remember, I know you,
I smile familiar
Do you know me?
Do you know my face
Do you know you are my beloved

A madman skin bruised like an old leather belt ambles by
screaming “ I am the king of Pain.”
He pays to you silent tribute

The musicians dip and dive in the watery smoke bar air
He pays to you silent tribute

The Church steeple stands believing
while expressway congestion looses faith
while the Sky-scrapers aspire to Babel

He is here, in the city amounts his kind
happily like one in nature
or the devote before their God

He pay to you silent tribute