Part 2 (1/2)

Thoughts that the energy of youth Had some pivotal focus Made each imagined man to him Like a lollipop, but the parks would not do:

There the man with the smashed fender Might be obligated to 69 A winner without a face-- a drag race ending in the winner's backseat, And on his tools which would rib in.

And inside that bar where women snuggle Away their faces in equality, And where men rotate hips on the dance floor Like an earth's axes...this would not do: For there were no friends to affect Mutually and f.a.ggishly in embraces; And the young and sensitive Were Oriental and fonder Of the cigarettes They put in their faces And the beers that suddenly appeared Before them. This would not do: Mouth-hugging the earth On its bulge of life Or moving to songs Where the dances never end.

He was an old f.a.g and must retain A square orbit.

It, at least, Was a gentleman's right And in accordance with the Manner of the f.a.gs.

The block was long.

In the shadows and oblique actualities He felt its length. His stomach tightened In fear of the length.

Transitional Mendacities

No, the supremity of having been split off from A larger ent.i.ty by being spit out From p.u.s.s.y lips while Reeking pain and havoc Like a living tongue pulled From aperture and den Is not sign enough That he is meant To be sustained As an integral part of the world, Unique and indispensable.

Thinking about how much longer He will need to play out the day That issue is not his, and never has been.

”The job was done”

He could say, later, After the storm.

Hand-limp, His broom dance sweeps Upended under an empty park bench-- Dirt caught under The tongues of his feet-- So his paycheck Will come in the mail And become bank figures He can suck from To keep he and his woman Housed and fed, and well enough To legally rape each other in embraces, Forgetful of their lives.

The man has a son, and stands nights aching behind an a.s.sembly line, Sleeping the days away While his son goes to school.

The son thinks his father Is thoughtless and dirty And his mother a grease-b.i.t.c.h For marrying him.

The son grows up Between his college books, And begins to put it together: A society of men Wanting to take a variety Of stimulating produce-- Though some were more the makers Than the takers; The image of rightness In a man putting his hormones To the making of a company In a family; a family That needs a provider to survive; A man honorable and trapped

And there are nights He awakens, gagging at the Sudden thought of a man Next to him Who had engaged his body In a lower form of sharing.

And he wonders if embracing a world Of ideas can be done When all things cannot be believed; If humanism is Energy vented To avoid futility; And what grossness He would have to justify next-- All on those nights When self-perspectives Are swept under in change.

Man of Coal

You knew it was coming: Twenty-three years and the mine Would notice you one time, Photocopied.

A voice below bellows Your name, Dave, Into the settling air of coal dust.

After you shut off the engines And descend beneath the dragline's skeletal Nose which canopies like a skysc.r.a.per on Its side in mid-air You confront a face You cannot see in the descending sun. Shadow-still, Enormous might engulfing over you To the height of The dragline's triple-tank wheels, You see him-- The heels on his leather boots Locked in the train-track grooves of dirt.

As he hands the notice to you Its stiffness shakes In your calloused hand.

You know that what is left of the day Is becoming cold; and despite the smell Of dirt there is a scent Of watermelon in the damp air, Although you do not know it as that smell Or that there is a smell at all, really.

And yet a faintness of some half-knowledge That touches its weight lightly in your mind Drags itself into places you cannot touch.

Pulling out of his shadow You think of how you might hand This sheet to your wife Like a child presenting to his mother An award from school: Your wife screaming laughter of relief As she hugs the paper to her breast;

Or how your strong hand might sweat As you pick up the receiver of the ringing phone, Expecting that after saying ”Hi”

That one of your college children's voices would end The conversation there For you to hand the vibrations To your wife--but instead That child Congratulates you For no longer destroying the land.

The noon hour whistle Vibrates the walls Of the hollow heavens To the cab; the thermos-well Of soup, sitting on your lap, you cannot see, but You feel its stillness Stagnating and absorbing The contaminating minerals Of the tin, walling in the contents; And still you want to turn on the ignition To finish out one more complete day In the twenty-three years here Of hard work.

The quandary then snaps, and you escape.

When out of the valley you enter the truck And close the door-- The second time harder, and it latches.

You turn the key And the truck bounces to the highway.