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3rd shift life
i watch delbert rolling a farmer finger
into one of his large nostrils. dale bly
has constructed a sign on cardboard:
AIDS CURES FAGS
& he swears it's the truth,
the skinny weasel fu ck
with nightly bombardments of anal sex
jokes. delbert wipes along dusty brown
work-pants, shifts his balls, the little
right-wing fanatic anus who resembles a
dirty billy-goat leprechun bleats: i agree.
he chuckles. bly again points out
what truth exists in his sign.
i'm so far f u c k i n g removed from these
lunatics, tho after 6 years i fit right in ok,
i call myself "shultz" as in hogan's heroes,
i know f u c k i n g nothing!
i don't know how i've managed this:
30 years of underground writing
the past 20 in erie's 3rd shift factories.
a certain rearrangement of poet & poetry,
but at such an expensive price. take for
example my first-hand experience of hate.
mounting hateful intensity in a terrible
marriage with a demon. farmer foremen
with half a brain. ignorant hateful companies
creating absolute amerikan worker
slavery.
more & more they want of you, always.
well, i've been a resident of the dungeons
a long time. do i have factory stories
galore, tho i don't write many. i was a very
heavy drinker in my younger days, young &
somewhat strong, strong enough & my
shoulders
are indeed muscular from years of factory
work. what wimpy kind of
faggot poet are you, by the way?
labor day, '99
27 years paying social security taxes.
27 years federal income tax.
27 years moving my body to do things
the mind don't want to do. 27 years
inside amerika's lowest factories
smoking for sensibility, drinking for
love & numbness. 27 years of madness
disgust. 27 years clanging metal,
rip of rip-saws, hiss of high p.s.i. steam
& air-lines, beeping jitneys in reverse,
splintered 8-foot pallet balanced on a knee,
bicep concept unclogs slothfulness (surely).
27 years industrial slave labor grunt.
racks, hickory-logs in a trailer i spend
2 days unloading in seattle, 1978,
before that the steel-mill above pittsburgh
where i watched blackie eat a chicken
sandwich, bones & all, 3 a.m. lunch-break
in a tin shack, summer night rain,
muddy puddles & train-lights, furnaces
of lava fire, tracks, dirty men. blackie
was a funny little guy i'd bet is dead.
27 years of back-stabbers & morons &
power-dicked foremen.
27 years at the end of the 20th century
in amerika's manufacturing segment
of labor. 27 years writing
myself alive & free -- building a pyramid
free-hand, obsessed. & in this pyramid
i am spiced & wrapped & hidden,
mummy of blue-collar
employment protected by curses
from sunlight & fresh air.
sodomized by a 27 year self-built
pyramid, what
a fine symbolism
on this
rainy labor
day
morning.
drunk last night
& happy, there are
poems curving
around our voices in the livingroom,
around loud acoustic & bongo cassette,
rippling & splashing from pouring liquids,
echoing thru laughter memories,
christ, bart,
you & tara drank 16
bottles of rolling rock
in 3 hours,
then drove 120 miles south
at 9 at night,
& i hugged you,
i hugged tara,
in the parkinglot,
i knew you were
absolutely fine
in the world,
this world
where this
moment
we exist
with all
there is.
silly beat song
spacious sunday evening
walls well with october
jellyfish wishes in dark
green sea, see green
goats & all
grass glimmered now glimmering
upon earth's black dirt flesh
face-flesh & breath while dreaming
*
there aren't elephants spinning tonight
those opals spilling from my love's nipples
so circumstantially lovely
but i pick my blue bag
up from low chair,
loop wrist
clueless
what orifice will suffer
first or last
& then the moon whacks me awake
*
betting on buddha
over jesus
over allah
over under-dogs, those see-thru guys
with empty hands i bet
my smile
all blue
vied
black sky
perfect mind
blue like bottom
pond cement
paint
feeling spidery?
oh little octopus, she's
doing dishes
our place
i've eaten the rigatoni pasta,
meatless, but still very good,
plus bean-salad. i sat in our
livingroom in afternoon fall light
watching movies on the windows
while captain beefheart stomped
around. before i ate, my love,
i finished washing the dishes,
pots, & pans, mainly because i
love you & our life
together, tho please don't expect
me to do a 50-50 sharing of dishes.
i'd start tossing things.
we'd run out of pans
& neither of us wld eat. let
my actions be gentle shows of
absolute affection
without alterior motive nor
balance. how wonderfully
we balance
now. face pressed to face
& kiss to kiss,
poem to
poem.
jack kerouac is the devil
buddha blabs
bulbs off blissful light of heaven
upon feathery tundra-cloud
thin glass shards speckle starry terrain,
whereby monks collect moments
priests sip sins
holy hell
bloodless & gone
this gooey ghost
& his gooey words
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