Hotrod
Verse I

Wrenches clanging, knuckles banging
A drop of blood the young man spilt
A new part here, and old part… there
A hotrod had been built!
A patchwork, mechanical, quilt

Feeling good.  Head under a raised hood, hands occupied, the job nearing completion.  Sometimes the good feelings would dissipate though, as quickly as they came, as he cursed himself for stripping a bolt, or cursed someone else for selling him the wrong part, or the engineer whose design goals obviously did not consider “remove and replace”.
He cursed the “gorilla” that never heard of a torque-wrench, the glowing particle of **** that popped on to the top of his head as he welded, the metal chip he flushed from his eye, and even himself for the burn he received by impatiently touching something too soon after grinding. 
 He, and his type, cursed a lot, but mostly to their selves as they battled-on with things oily, hot, bolted, welded, and rusty – in cramped spaces. One day it was choice words for an “easy-out” that broke off next to a broken drill bit that had broken off in a broken bolt, that was being drilled for an easy-out. 
  Despite the swearing, the good and special feelings would always return, generally of a magnitude that exceeded the physical pain and mental frustration of the day, by a large margin.  
Certifiably obsessive, the young man continued to toil dutifully, soulfully, occasionally gleefully, sometimes even expertly, in his most loved and familiar place, his sanctuary, laboratory… the family garage.

And tomorrow would be the day.
With hard learned, hard earned expertise and confidence - in this special small place, a supremely happy and excited young man commanded his creation to life.

Threw a toggle, pressed a switch
Woke up the neighbors with that *******

The heart of his machine was a stroked Chevy engine that everyone had just grown sick hearing about.  Even the local machine shop to which the boy nervously entrusted his most prized possession had had enough.  “Sir, I don’t want to seem disrespectful, but from what I’ve read in Hot Rod Magazine, you might be suggesting a clearance too tight for forged pistons…” then it would be something else the next day.  
One must always speak politely to the machinist, and even though he always had, the usual allotment of contradictions and arguments afforded to each customer had long run out – and although the shop owner took a special liking to the boy because, as he liked to say, “he reminds me of me”, well, that man was done too.  But in the end, the mill was dead-on.  Of course from the start, the shop knew it would be; that’s almost always the case; it’s how they stay in business - simply doing good work.  Bad shops fall out quickly, but this place had the look of times gone by.  Good times. 
 Old porcelain signs, here and there were to be found, all original to the shop and revered by the older workers in honored nostalgia.  The younger workers get it too; they can tell from the co-workers they respect and learn from, there is something special about this past.  One sign advertises Carter Carburetors and the artwork depicts “three deuces”, model 97’s, sitting proudly atop a flathead engine, all speeding along in a red, open roadster.  Its occupants, a blond haired boy with slight freckles (driver), and a brunette girl passenger, bright white blouse, full and buttoned low. They are in the wind-blown cool, their excited expressions proclaim… "we have escaped and are free!" (and all you need is a Carter, or three).  How uniquely American.

The seasoned old engine block the boy entrusted to the shop cost him $120-even from the boneyard.  Not a bad deal for a good high-nickel content block that had never had its first 0.030”overbore.  In the shop, it was cleaned, checked for cracks by "magnafluxing", measured and re-measured, inspected and re-inspected.  It was shaped and cut in a special way that would allow the stroker crankshaft, that was to be the special part of this build, to have all the clearance it would need.  The engine block was fitted with temporary stress plates that mimic the presence of cylinder heads,  then the cylinders were bored to “first oversize”,  providing fresh metal for new piston rings to work against.  New bearings were installed everywhere bearings are required.  Parts were smoothed here and there.  Some surfaces were roughened just so, to allow new parts to “work-into each other” when things are finally brought together.  All of this was done with a level of precision and attention far, far greater than the old “4- bolt” had ever received at the factory on its way to a life of labor in the ¾ ton work van from which it came, and for which it had served so dutifully.  They called this painstaking dedication to precision measurement and fit, to hitting all specifications on the mark, “blueprinting”, and it would continue throughout the entire build of this engine.  The boy remained worried, but the shop had done it a million times.

After machining, the block was filled with new and strong parts that cost the young man everything he had.   Parts selected with the greatest of effort, decision, and debate.   You can compromise on paint and live with some rust,  he would say, wait for good tires, but never scrimp on the engine.  Right on.  Someone taught the boy right, regardless of whether or not he fully understood the importance of the words he parroted.  His accurate proclamation  also provided ample excuse for the rough, unfinished, underfunded look of the rest of his machine.  But it was just a look, his car was, in fact, “right”.   And its power plant?  Well the machine shop had talked their customer into letting them do the final engine assembly - even cut their price to do it.  To make that go down easy, they asked to have two of their shop decals affixed to the rod on race-days.  The young man thought that was a fair deal, but the shop was really just looking out for the boy, with their herring of sorts.  
The mill in its final form was the proper balance of performance and durability; and with its camshaft so carefully selected, the engine's “personality” was perfectly matched to the work at hand.   It would produce adequate torque in the low RPM range to get whole rig moving quickly, yet deliver enough horsepower near and at red-line to pile on the MPH, fast.  No longer a polite-natured workhorse, this engine, this engine is impatient now.  High compression, a rapid, choppy idle - it seems to be biting at the bit to be released.  On command, it gulps its mixture and screams angrily, and often those standing around have a reflexive jump - the louder, the better - the more angry, the better.  If it hurts your ears, that’s a good feeling.  If its bark startles, that’s a good startle.  A cacophony?  No, the “music” of controlled explosions, capable of thrusting everything and everyone attached, forward, impolitely, on a rapid run to the freedom so well depicted in the ad.  

This is the addictive sound and feel that has appealed to a certain type of person since engines replaced horses, and why?  A surrogate voice for those who are otherwise quiet?  A visceral celebration of accomplishment?    Who cares.  Shift once, then again - speed quickly makes its appearance.  It appears as a loud, rushing wind and a visually striking, unnatural view of the surrounding scenery.  At some point, in the sane, it triggers a natural response - better slow down.    

He uncorked the headers, bought gasoline, dropped her in gear, tore off to the scene
Camaros and Mustangs, an old ‘55
Obediently lined-up, to get skinned alive!

Verse II (1st person)

I drove past the banner that said “Welcome race fans” took a new route, behind the grandstands
And through my chipped window, I thought I could see
Some of the racers were laughing at me

I guess rust and primer are not to their taste
But I put my bucks mister in the right place

I chugged/popped past cars that dealers had sold
Swung into a spot, next to something old

Emerging with interest from under his hood
My neighbor said two words, he said, “sounds good”

The Nova I parked next to was “classic rodding” in its outward appearance.  The much overused “primer paint job”.  The hood and front fenders a fiberglass clamshell, pinned affair.  Dice hanging from the mirror paid homage to days its driver never knew, but wished he had.  He removed them before he drove, always.

If you know how to peel the onion, secrets are revealed.  Wilwood brake calipers can be a dead giveaway. Someone needs serious stopping power - maybe.  Generally, owners who have sprung the bucks for this type gear let the calipers show off in bright red, to make a statement, and sometimes, these days, it’s just a fashion statement.  Expensive calipers, as eye candy, seem to be all the rage.  What is true, however, is very few guys spend big money on brakes only to render them inglorious and seemingly common with a shot of silver paint from a rattle can - and the owner of this half fiberglass racer that poses as a street car had done just that.  I'll glean two things from this observation. One, he needs those heavy brakes because he’s fast, and two, hiding them fits his style.  
Really, the message to be found in the silver paint, so cleverly applied to make your eyes simply slide across on their way to more interesting things, was “sleeper”.   And sleeper really means, he’s one of those guys with a score to settle - with everyone perhaps.   The list of “real parts” grew, if you knew where to look.  Looking was something I had unofficial permission to do since my rod was undergoing a similar scrutiny.  
“Stroked?”, I asked.  That’s something you can’t see from the outside. “ No”, my racer friend replied.  
“Hundred shot?”  (If engines have their language, so do the people who love them).   Despite the owner’s great efforts to conceal braided fuel and nitrous lines, electrical solenoids and switches, I spied his system.  The chunks of aluminum posing as ordinary spacers under his two Holly's were anything but.   “No”, was his one-word reply to my 100- shot question.  I tried again; “Your nitrous system is cleanly installed, how much are you spraying?”  “Two hundred fifty” in two stages, he said.  That’s more like it, I thought, and I then figured, he too had budgeted well for the machine shop – if not, he was gambling in a game that if lost, would soon fly parts in all directions.   Based on the overall neat work on display, I believed his build was up to the punishment planned. 
  I knew exactly what this tight-lipped guy was about, seeing someone very familiar in him as it were, and that made the “sounds good” complement I received upon my arrival all the more valuable.  I liked my neighbor.  And I liked the fact of our scratch-built rods having found each other - and I looked forward to us both dusting off the factory jobs.  It was going to be a good day.

The voice on the loudspeaker tells us we’re up.

Pre-staged, staged, then given the green
The line becomes blurred between man and machine

Bones become linkage
Muscle, spring
Fear, excitement

Time distorts ….
Color disappears …
Vision narrows…
Noise ---  becomes music
Speed, satisfaction

End

A bicycle is the most efficient transportation machine.  A little input and I’m gliding, moving a useful measurable distance but more than that. I like going fast enough so the wind in my ears is louder than my thoughts.  On a tough day I like riding until I can be grateful again; sometimes that takes a couple hours but every ride is a good ride.

My youth’s independence was a banana seat Huffy pulled from an under-appreciated pile of rust in the back of St. Vincent’s Thrift Shop.  No school bus meant riding to school, the first 45 minutes of every day in all weather. Afternoons were exploring detours; summers were expeditions to the city limits, sometimes beyond.  I needed an upgrade for high school; I found a spotless antique 3 speed Raleigh, the cultural English workhorse collecting dust in an unlikely garage for $50.

I kept it through two foster homes. The first one kept me busy with farm chores, but the second was back in town. There, I had the bike back, and as an aside, they had a phenomenally sophisticated wall sized sound system: reel-to-reel and amazing headphones. I would forget myself in records: Sgt. Peppers, Genesis, Yes, etc, and another favorite. Just a guitar and piano instrumental album with a simple melody called Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter. Something about that one song in particular I heard faint glimmerings of contentment that was denied to me.  I would replay it to cling to this hint of a simple happiness I didn’t understand; that if it was in the song, it was somewhere deep in me.
Without a car for 10 years, one used 10-speed or another got me to various eccentric jobs.  

Fast forward to the life-changer, after a divorce. Needing to reconnect with myself, I searched for a decent bike. I found it hanging dusty in the back of a cluttered boutique shop smelling of tire rubber, quiet with racers’ confidence. They had a Lemond thoroughbred on consignment, assembled custom 5 years earlier to race. It was slightly outdated, but a dent on the top tube put it out to pasture. It was steel though, so rideable enough for me.  My entire $300 savings and it was mine. Then I discovered the special pedals needed special shoes, so another month saving for those.  I wasn’t going to wear those silly spiderman outfits, until I started to ride more than 10 miles and my **** demanded it.  And those pockets in the back of the shirt were handy.  I met a friend who taught me how to draft: my skinny wheel a few inches behind the bike in front at 20 mph, to save precious energy in the slipstream. Truly dangerous, vulnerable, and effectively blinded; but he pointed at the ground with various hand signals to warn of upcoming road hazards. I was touched by this wordless language of trust and camaraderie. This innate concern is essential to the sport, even among competitors, so it seems to attract quality people I liked.  My new life expanded with friends.

I discovered biking exercise could stabilize the life-long effects of brain injury, lost some weight, grew stronger, and started setting goals.  First longer group rides, then a century (100 miles in one ride), then mountain biking: epic fun in nature, unadulterated happiness.  Then novice racing, then the next category up with a team, then a triathlon.  It became an admitted obsession but I won a pair of socks or bike parts every now and then.  Eventually tattooed two bike chains around my ankle, one twisted and the other broken.  I loved the lifestyle, and had truly reinvented and rediscovered myself.

A 500 mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles with fellow wounded veterans helped dissipate the old shame from the military.  I had joined the ride to raise money for a good cause.  I respected the program and knew personally that cycling had changed my life.  They turned out to be inspiring, helping me more than I could have helped them.  Some had only just started riding a bike for only a few weeks, some were amputees fit with special-made adapters on regular bikes, some had no legs using hand cycles.  They all joined on to the task of riding 500 miles. No one whined, and helping each other finish the day was the only goal.  While riding with them, I began to open up about my experience.  I found a few others who also had TBI, and we could laugh about similar mishaps.  The other veterans didn’t judge me about anything, like when I was injured, the nature of my disability, how much I did or didn’t accomplish. I had signed up just like them, had to recover back to a functioning life just like them.  It was the first time in my life that whole chapter in my life was accepted; I wasn't odd, and they helped close the shame on that old chapter.  (Thank you, R2R.)  The next year I took a 1500 mile self-supported bike trip through western mountain ranges with my husband and soulmate, whom I had met mt. biking.

There was one late Spring day, finally warm after a long winter, when I just wanted to ride for a few hours by myself.  No speedometer or training intervals, just enjoy the park road winding under the trees. I had downloaded some new music on the IPod, a sampler from the library.  I felt happy.  Life is Good.  Rounding a bend by the river, coasting through sunbeams sparkling the park’s peaceful road, my earphones unexpectedly played Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter.  I hadn’t heard that simple guitar tune in three decades.  My God, time suddenly disappeared.  I was right back in the forgotten foster home, listening for the faint silver threads of the contentment I was feeling at this very moment on the bike.  The full force of this sudden connection, the wholeness of the life and unity of myself in one epiphany, brought me to tears. I found myself pouring my heart into praying hang in there, girl, hang in there, you’ll find it and I felt my younger self hearing echoes of birds singing in new green leaves.

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.

Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.

The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart..    .    .
        After the sunburn of the day
        handling a pitchfork at a hayrack,
        after the eggs and biscuit and coffee,
        the pearl-gray haystacks
        in the gloaming
        are cool prayers
        to the harvest hands.

In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse.
On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels..    .    .
I am here when the cities are gone.
I am here before the cities come.
I nourished the lonely men on horses.
I will keep the laughing men who ride iron.
I am dust of men.

The running water babbled to the deer, the cottontail, the gopher.
You came in wagons, making streets and schools,
Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse,
Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw,
You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,
You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat,
I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single file the timber and the plain.

I hold the dust of these amid changing stars.
I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have seen the red births and the red deaths
Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.

Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?.    .    .
        Rivers cut a path on flat lands.
        The mountains stand up.
        The salt oceans press in
        And push on the coast lines.
        The sun, the wind, bring rain
        And I know what the rainbow writes across the east or west in a half-circle:
        A love-letter pledge to come again..    .    .
      Towns on the Soo Line,
      Towns on the Big Muddy,
      Laugh at each other for cubs
      And tease as children.

Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up..    .    .
Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke-out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise-out of wild ducks woven in greens and purples-
Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Out of log houses and stumps-canoes stripped from tree-sides-flatboats coaxed with an ax from the timber claims-in the years when the red and the white men met-the houses and streets rose.

A thousand red men cried and went away to new places for corn and women: a million white men came and put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline with stub teeth.

In an early year the call of a wild duck woven in greens and purples: now the riveter's chatter, the police patrol, the song-whistle of the steamboat.

To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake.
I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short..    .    .
What brothers these in the dark?
What eaves of skyscrapers against a smoke moon?
These chimneys shaking on the lumber shanties
When the coal boats plow by on the river-
The hunched shoulders of the grain elevators-
The flame sprockets of the sheet steel mills
And the men in the rolling mills with their shirts off
Playing their flesh arms against the twisting wrists of steel:
        what brothers these
        in the dark
        of a thousand years?.    .    .
A headlight searches a snowstorm.
A funnel of white light shoots from over the pilot of the Pioneer Limited crossing Wisconsin.

In the morning hours, in the dawn,
The sun puts out the stars of the sky
And the headlight of the Limited train.

The fireman waves his hand to a country school teacher on a bobsled.
A boy, yellow hair, red scarf and mittens, on the bobsled, in his lunch box a pork chop sandwich and a V of gooseberry pie.

The horses fathom a snow to their knees.
Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills.
The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats..    .    .
Keep your hogs on changing corn and mashes of grain,
    O farmerman.
    Cram their insides till they waddle on short legs
    Under the drums of bellies, hams of fat.
    **** your hogs with a knife slit under the ear.
    Hack them with cleavers.
    Hang them with hooks in the hind legs..    .    .
A wagonload of radishes on a summer morning.
Sprinkles of dew on the crimson-purple *****.
The farmer on the seat dangles the reins on the rumps of dapple-gray horses.
The farmer's daughter with a basket of eggs dreams of a new hat to wear to the county fair..    .    .
On the left-and right-hand side of the road,
        Marching corn-
I saw it knee high weeks ago-now it is head high-tassels of red silk creep at the ends of the ears..    .    .
I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.
They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire..    .    .
The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.

Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o'clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled.
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches-among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain-they keep old things that never grow old.

The frost loosens corn husks.
The Sun, the rain, the wind
        loosen corn husks.
The men and women are helpers.
They are all cornhuskers together.
I see them late in the western evening
        in a smoke-red dust..    .    .
The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarlet comb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah to the streaks of daylight,
The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the underbrush for muskrats, barking at a **** in a treetop at midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail round a corncrib,
The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel point of a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitched to a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon among cornshocks in fall,
These phantoms come into the talk and wonder of people on the front porch of a farmhouse late summer nights.
"The shapes that are gone are here," said an old man with a cob pipe in his teeth one night in Kansas with a hot wind on the alfalfa..    .    .
Look at six eggs
In a mockingbird's nest.

Listen to six mockingbirds
Flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
Hidden in eggs..    .    .
When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God's Heaven.
When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.
When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way..    .    .
Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: "Any new songs for me? Any new songs?"

O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting-your lover comes-your child comes-the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod.
O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back-
There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley..    .    .
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water..    .    .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
  a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
  only an ocean of to-morrows,
  a sky of to-morrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
  at sundown:
        To-morrow is a day.

These are the hard times,
the long stretch of coal-shed days,
the corrugated nights of the antinomian.

I retch at the old doubts and the panoply
of dustbins clattering bright,
their watchers simian in the morning ****.

I dress as though dredging up greys,
monotone deep in the GB tradition:
now sandpit tea with oil stain floats
silt dreads the mass of a seven year clay.

Four weeks of shadows drown wind in a storm.

And dreams of my cottage
in days of such calm and late summer happiness
as brought cut corn and strawbs
and horse manure in hugs

until like Zulu tribesmen the birds appeared.
Hunched with expectation
Spears smiling like baddies they rushed me.

I woke pouring sweat like a workhorse
the weakest of defences laid up
my face pulling cellophane over French windows.

Go on, and pass it along
To your workhorse

Go on, tell me I am wrong
I am your resource

Please blame me
Please shame me
Please work me to the bone
Please frame me
Please proclaim me
Make me one of your own

Get out, but please don't shout
At your workhorse

Get out, you're too devout
To your workhorse

Please blame me
Please shame me
Please work me to the bone
Please frame me
Please proclaim me
Make me one of your own

§
Battle of New Britain

Lieutenant Jim G Paulos led elements
of G Company in a savage counterattack
that ousted the intruders supported
by Lieutenant James R Mallon’s improvised
platoon of H/11, which remained
to help man casualty-depleted line.

Improvise (OED):
One: to compose on spur
of the moment; to utter
or perform extempore

two: to bring about or get up
on the spur of the moment;
to provide for the occasion

Three: […] hence to do anything
On the spur of the moment

Improvised platoon
Df James R Mallon:

When most of your platoon
lies dead in the pumice sands
of the South Pacific-Japanese
bushido bullets tear flesh and spirit
out of the corporeal—husks of limp
limbs you fought to defend and they you
Japanese mortar fire, machine and small-gun fire
fifteen yards in advance of the wire
how do you bring about or get up
the courage to grab whoever—
the nearest marine
talk through ears drums burst by mortar succeeding shockwaves
forget for the time the men
you spent months training
sipping beers in Australia
laughing over bar stool drunken jokes
men you shared your dreams about after
away from the mosquitoes
away from the constant moisture
rain rain rain day and night
soaking through fatigues through skin through bone
never enough sun to dry out
air already saturated
sweat or seawater—it is all the same
now you must find new men—men you have seen,
but do not know the same as your own platoon
their life and yours in each others hands
alone in a group of stranger-brothers
always faithful
keep composure in the face
your buddy’s entrails pouring into the pumice sand
hence to do anything
on the spur kicked into your side
to block what no man should ever be asked to see
and do what you can in the moment
to save your division from enemy fire.

§
Cyclops Black Eyes

One summer e’ening drunk to hell
He stood there nearly lifeless
A gal sat in the corner
And it’s how are ye ma’am and what’s yer name
And would ye like a drink?
She looked at him, he at her
All she could do was accept one

And rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ she’ll go
Through his pair of blue eyes

She knew not the pumice beaches and streams
Sometimes walking sometime crawling
amongst blood and death ‘neath a screaming sky
Where Cyclops black eyes waited for him
Was it birds whistling in the trees?
Always the Cyclops black eyes waiting for them
So they give the wind a talkin’

And a rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ he’ll go
Away from those Cyclops black eyes

And the arms and legs of other men
Were scattered all around
Some cursed, some prayed, some prayed then cursed
Then prayed and bled some more
All he could see were Cyclops black eyes looking at him

No Cyclops black eyes waiting for her
And a rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ she’ll go
And never know what saw his pair of blue eyes

Could she forsee in that pair of blue eyes
Decades he’d spend drunk to hell?
Sometimes walking sometime crawling
Rovin’ and rovin’ away from those Cyclops black eyes

§
Colt 1911**

I was nineteen when I learned
my Dad his father’s Colt 1911 pistol

when Dad was young he
and his brother found
the gun—hidden in the rafters
of the cinderblock basement
their father built; magazine bullets and pistol
on one rafter—separate, except
the bullets lived in the magazine

my dad and uncle, like any
young boy, were fascinated
by the pistol; though too young
to feel and know the power
and danger in the cold blue metal

when their father and mother were
away—home alone they snuck
to the hand-laid basement
reached around the rafters
through years of dust and darkness
feeling for the colt and mag
scrape-click-pop—ca-chick
round in the chamber—“freeze!”

so played boyhood fantasies
cowboys & Indians
cops & robbers
with a lethal toy


so my dad kept it a secret
locked in a tarnished steel box
locked through the trigger guard
magazine separate
four silver, dimpled, bullets rolled round between
their queue and releaser

I was struck by the weight—heavier than I expected—I felt the years of use polished into the wood grips—thick hand grease sweat blood humidity sand saltwater gun oil mud tears life saved and taken.
At the bottom of the wood grips ticked notches deep in the grain—both sides—different numbers; “What are these?” I asked running my finger across the nocth-ticks feeling their depths their absence consciously carved with his next best tool—kabar: workhorse that can baton through five inch diameter logs, machete through two-finger branches, dig a hole to burrow while machinegun fire mows down jungle; easy to sharpen, keeps an edge; full tang to hammer temples or tent posts

“I don’t know; the only thing we have is the lore.”

fI counted seven
the number the magazine carries
eight total, if you have one in the chamber

You have to commit to fire
a 1911, the cliché: don’t pull
the trigger—squeeze
is how the 1911 fires—a button
fits the crotch of the thumb and index finger
opposite the trigger on the handle;
to unleash the hammer then
lead, squeeze the two—firm
tight at the target; no shot fired
by accident—no Marvins with the 1911.

If I had last words they would be…
Well… I mean… I see in those streams of invectives
I see especially people who drink, eat, sleep,
who make all human functions
Which are quite rather ******
And I shall say that they’re heavy
It never stopped being heavy
I noticed
I’ve read so many verses and particularly
verses from the 17th century
Verses, so-called courteous verses
I found 3 or 4 good ones in thousands of them
There’s little lightness in man
He’s heavy... isn’t he
And nowadays he’s extraordinary in heaviness
Since automobiles, alcohol, ambition, politics make him heavy
Even heavier
It’s mostly like that, he’s extremely heavy
Maybe one day shall we see a mind rebellion against the weight
But it isn’t for tomorrow
For now... we’re heavy
So I’d say indeed
If I had to die
I’d say
Man is heavy
That’s all
Oh! They were mean but...
Because they were heavy
They were heavy
They were heavy… jealous of a certain lightness
Jealous... jealous like a woman who wears a clothing burlap
instead of another who wears lace
Like someone who owns a workhorse
instead of a thoroughbred
Jealous...
Jealous of being heavy... that’s all
Crippled...
They weigh... they're crippled
Heaviness makes them *******
Therefore we can beware of them
They’re ready to do anything
Oh sure
They’re ready to do anything
And to activate heaviness
They drink, aren’t they
So when they drink, they turn into sledgehammers
It’s frightening, isn’t it
Sledgehammers without control
Yes, they’re especially like this
They activate... increase their weight
Instead of making themselves lighter
Oh! They’re not in Ariel’s side
They’re more like Caliban
More and more

Paddy's faithful workhorse
It broke down by the gate
And he had forty acres
To plough and cultivate

Paddy lived all alone
Now that was a fact
So he wrote an advert
Somewhat lacking tact

WIFE REQUIRED URGENTLY
A MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR
IS THAT THE APPLICANT
SHOULD POSSESS A TRACTOR
AGE UNIMPORTANT, COLOUR DOESN'T MATTER
PLEASE ENCLOSE WITH REPLY PHOTO
OF SAID TRACTOR

Our road trip memories align
as we pass a Farmall tractor,
fire engine red and rooted
roadside in a field of alfalfa,
a relic washed by cloudburst,
a workhorse dried in sunshine,
arrested air stack,
rusted crank case,
supple spider webs
in chaste wheel wells—
immutable old machine
somehow extinguishing
in the reflected acreage
of the rear view mirror.

Shortened by your own expectations
to a son, whose a workhorse.
who's under the shade of others,
ill and hidden under the rocks.

Under dog they say
does not brag any stellar milestone he's been in,
giving all the drastic efforts
but still gray and merely unseen.

Questioned himself
when he learned the term "black sheep"
Child in the heart, strong,
operates at his own risks.

of epic proportions and stars
he sees but only to himself,
hidden angst and questions to his own blood,
kept in the inner skirts of his chest.

A son, whose emerging,
underrated with his dreams.
a follower of the art
waiting until dawn, forever it seems.

They were cold and sterile
Maybe that's why they plagued it
As they placed their signatures upon experimentation
and pushed too hard like a workhorse facing retirement

It's a script indeed
The downfall of a generation
Weak minded fiends cycle it out like ***** laundry
Siphoning jet fuel to reach new heights in sacrifice
It's no wonder why none of us can sleep at night

Me I'm just a piece of paper full of ineligible lines
Treated like a germ
With great pain held behind whimpering eyes
So hard to disguise

My pace quickened as I passed
Glossy eyes and desperate breaths
People clawing crying out
I continued forward heart cast out

The carrot and the thread are still
my calves and hooves, motionless
chewing on a bitter pill
eyes take in the stillness

A slight neigh to sigh a sigh
the usual sounds and usual grunts
the clicking tongue, a pitch too high
pavement castanet-ing
under screaming sun

The carrot and the thread begin to sway
my calves and hooves, they shake
chewing on spit and year-old hay
eyes that want to take

A step and a clack, forward I move
A step and a clack, the carrot too

this I can't deny
a secret person from myself
a secret life behind these eyes
cast away behind the shelf

a personality I cannot find
what no one expects
... sincere
and yet...
insane

for being a caged animal?
tame?!

if you are what they want you to be
if you are sane... then you are weak
if you are financially inept
then you are ******.

goodbye dignity
goodbye "BEING A MAN"
but you never needed that
you were always an intellectual
you had no other choice

but this is hidden in the chaos
and the chaos is something no one can argue
when you try they don't believe you

they believe in a higher being
when they don't understand
they don't understand disorder
they don't understand biological disorder

I am not tame when provoked... just like you
except when I am provoked...
I naturally turn violent

when I turn evil, I turn on myself
safety measure, defense mechanism against me.
and when I can no longer take it
the dark thoughts pace rapidly
nerves are shot

I am only writing this to save my life
I am only writing this to save my life
I am only...

the life I don't want
in a place that's tolerable
with the inhabitants that don't understand me

I am only writing this to preserve....

I'm not pathetic
I'm not what everyone says I am...
or thinks I am
I'm not...

but they wouldn't know that

they never bothered to ask me...
I'm either too intimidating by appearance
too the opposite by demeanor
I'm either this or that
this or that...
ITS ALWAYS MULTIPLE THINGS AT THE SAME TIME
DOES ANYONE ELSE EVEN KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS???

It barely makes sense to me..
I cannot identify...
and then I give up..
turn apathetic...
begin narration

and I am only writing this to calm myself down
I am only writing this to save my life
I am not selfish enough to take it...
even from the people who don't believe me.
the people I love.

I fight myself everyday for them.
Because if it were up to me... well...

...

I now remember why I chose to write
I am defeated... by nature
and a workhorse by society.
hysterical...

I hope no one ever reads this...
even if they did
it wouldn't matter...
this is the last thing someone does
is trick themselves into company
who cares what others think
when you're basically talking to yourself
you're talking to yourselves
and yet...

you are still the mystery narrator

A MAN, just how the world likes us
defeated.

Dead in a Metaphor.

The story of a defined bus
A description of the 1954 Greyhound Scenicruiser that reminds us
A coach bus with its own design
A long distance bus that comes to mind
The Scenicruiser had all the features
Air conditioning to help passengers relax
Picture windows so the passengers wouldn’t feel perplexed
A full equipped restroom at your disposal at your elect
Then a dual half floor with a big window in the middle of galore
The view from all angles at the top
The traveler’s enjoyment that just wouldn’t stop
The famous Scenicruiser being that revolutionized bus
It involves the slogan, “Leave the driving to us”
A bus of the past
The memory that will certainly last
The workhorse of the fleet
The reclining seats that add to the treat
I almost forgot, every seat had a place for your feet
Scenicruiser of years past
I almost hear the echoes of the wheels that turn
History in the making of a long lasting urn
Hauling passengers and freight
The idea is don’t be late
The motto, “Don’t miss the bus”
The Scenicruiser’s history involves all of us.

These beasts of burden with their potent power,
They plough the fields for hours and hours,
Working for the farmer,
Never do they complain,
Strolling through the vineyards,
Harvesting next seasons grapes,
Time and time again,
While Amish farmers use theirs gifts and treat them tenderly,
In all their bridle wear,
Made in traditional way,
Left over gifts from these gentle giants,
Their deposits natural,
Have been used to heat and build a dwelling, if not somewhat smelly,
While keeping gardens blooming in a most productive way,
Some of the many things a workhorse does in a day,

Workhorses they also dwell in city life,
While walking through the city streets,
Mingling with the passers by,
Or controlling the traffic,
As part of forces supporting royalty,
Through regal processions,
Walking boldly proudly through a cacophony of drum beat sounds,
In a disturbing row,
All this noise and full furore,

Please respect these fine beasts,
Brethren of our world,
Poetry in motion as with such grace they move,
One thing for sure,
they can help us save our world with their minimal emissions!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

What a way to spend October 11, all in one day?
There are many enterprising words that I could say
It was the 14th Annual Mass Transit & Trolley Modeler’s Convention in New Brunswick, New Jersey
It was held at RUTGERS UNIVERSITY Gymnasium Annex
All attendee’s wore badgers and stepped back into time
Trains, busses and trolley’s all had their preservation combined
A look at steam engines who was the workhorse of the rails
Come and follow me as I explain in more detail
Transit and highway buses the vintage of their trail
Towns with trolley’s, a matter of tracks and wires
A world from the past with tomorrow that’s here today with plenty of technology advances that inspires
A trip down memory lane in years before my years
Yet the honor of preservation to continue my passion for buses in preserver
Then there were highway buses I once rode
Purchased a scale model MC7 Challenger of Vermont Transit, and added to my personal collection of look and behold
A day well spend indeed
The story goes on in proceed
I really didn’t know where time went
This was my exploration being support
You could say, “My determined will”
It was my ambition running on still
Yet it was a worthwhile experience
But it was a lot of walking and you had to have endurance
I learned even more mass transit and buses
This places me like an Ever Ready battery to influence
Also with that knowledge, I learned about the back roads and rails no longer exist
This was a thought I couldn’t resist
The mass transit flow and time is moving with systems go.

I want this to be about you, 
But it's not

It resides in the hours
That I spent wide awake
When I couldn't sleep so I smoked
And I couldn't dream so I wrote
What I hoped I'd see

For the metaphors 
I couldn't keep churning out
So I smoked some more
And I spurted out
Lines about lines

For the driver on the dented highway
With the window cracked
To feel the chills of the air blowing past
Listening to Bob Dylan tell her
The person she was supposed to be but
Never was
And never will

I want this to tell you how I feel,
But it won't

And if she drives far enough she'll reach that
Looming exit
The one she knows she must take
Back to the life she's sick of living
But fights through the pain
For the same reasons that I
Fight through, because
I want to meet a pretty girl
With great vocabulary,
And a smile like Rita Heyworth

I'm still looking for that girl
To drive me across that highway
And recycle old Dylan lines
As if they were personal dictums
She had synthesized herself
And we can freewheel this road together

See I'll never be that great poet that
Three hundred and twenty-nine thousand people
Have watched on the Internet
And that is a comfort

Because the truth resists simplicity
And in my heart of hearts I am a simple man
And telling the truth through words in meter
Or in stanzas
Will never come as naturally to me
As it does to Dylan
But in my acceptance of my ignorance
I become more powerful
Than I'd ever need to be 
Poetic.

So if writing is always my hobby
And never my workhorse
If I can self-satisfy through 
Strict stanzas that I will
Seldom share
If it is only to a girl 
Driving on a highway
Singing songs about formerly-modern America that I
Recite these rehearsed thoughts of mine
Than I will have succeeded

Because my career will have been love
And maybe I can write this 
About you.
And then, and only then, it will be.

A speck on a tile,
the cabinet floor,
my patchwork wooden table
left to disrepute.

That red speck of being,
crack open another,
the sharp side of glass or else
the fluid within.

It laces my blood,
or else is blood itself,
staining my innards
and shaping my mask.

My martyred heart
and its tireless pound,
marching the red-coated soldiers
to their eventual demise.

Incorrigible workhorse,
sustain my progress
when all else has turned to ash and rain,
when all else has been slain.

My Boxer, he pleads
to keep on up the hill,
to allow him his efforts and fluid,
when we’ve all but given up.

And so I shave in the light
of the late-morning glow.
My hair collects in your old shaving mug,
remnants of yesterday.

So for now I’ll ignore
the speck on the tile,
and all of its false promises
in the time of my storm.

For now I’ll awake
with taut skin and white scars,
with broken-sleep eyes, pastured bone
and some far-off notion

of forlorn hope.

My Zebco 33 is part of my family
you see , on many a troubled day this
precision piece of machinery has helped
to foster great clarity , encouraged playful
lakeside banter , put many a panfish or two
in the creel as well
This old reel has ne'er skipped a beat in
thirty plus years , a faithful friend , riverbank
companion , an American workhorse in the blue
collar tradition , the 'go to friend' of a grateful fisherman* ...

Busting my back
Breaking my bones
Helping the pack
Holding their stones.

Workhorse will try
Workhorse won't budge
It's time's gone by
I'll be the judge

Verses out of rhyme
From prophets to poets
Out of line
Corridors of restless passages
Form this abode of passion
Of mine
In countless manifestations
Upon seeking representations
To salvage this predicted downfall
About to be genuinely fulfilled

What say you
To my fate in this
Displeasure?
Hiding the crimes
That people must censure
Getting a fix
And giving a trick
Being used like a workhorse
Before my staying power
Is over….

Can I make myself
Come to terms
With failures for fortune
Riding the crest
Of my oblivious popularity
Will they remember
Or can they see?
When white men
Would drag me
To the cell of my death?

I belong here, don’t I?
Like verses out of rhyme

I close my eyes
To nurture the *****
Of this solution
They must inject inside
Of me
To dissolve me
In the fading background
Like lingering shadows
That will never take shape
I brought my hands up
To touch my cheeks
I wipe the bitter tears
As I lay me down
To sleep…….

Do you still taste of salt?
You, playing tennis in the hot sun,
and me, in my office working.

Lovers with two separate lives
Until I got tired of being your workhorse.
Still, I miss the taste of your skin.

After work I
carried
the heavy cat
litter
container all the
way
home from the
store
now I feel
exhausted;
I'm called a
workhorse.