Robal Yad

(labor day spelled backward)

 

 

Grandad couldn't count money;

couldn't read at all. But I can. No

amount of pain and despair can keep

me from it. Because reading means

that I cant hide my pity in the gray hair

of Whitman. Cant ride the good life

of middle-class mediocrity, not thru the

back roads of Alabama or the hills of

Georgia where I hung from the bales of

tobacco to auction in iron trucks with no

radios, with clangorous, squealing axles;

where taut string tied the good stuff

away for the Marlboro and Lucky Strike

men to point and click off quick words

as if the brown mules had spoke. And

quiet as it's kept, I felt pain then in

knowing beneath the splendid helmet of

know-how was a good man in a dirty shirt,

In invulnerable coveralls meant as a poem

of sorrow. The labor of stanza's to those

thick, ordinary soles.

 

"Don't know much about history,

Don't know much biology

Don't know much about a science book

Don't know much about the French I took"

Because, as Sam Cooke would tell us just

how wonderful this world  would be

as he lay shot dead, eyes wide open, justifiable style

like Trevon Martin, in 64, between love songs no doubt.

But work is work until it's meaningless

or menial. My mother would limp home

after 10 hours of cooking and cleaning for

the Slockins, Jewish and proud,

who escaped the gestapo by "getting the hell out

of Germany" in those dark days before Reichskristallnacht,

sent home oversized shirts and shoes with

good soles left for the big headed boy who

made poems up about snow drifts and

dreams and who sat naked, most of the time,

wishing perhaps that all the moons would

come back at once to light the room that the

power company had dimmed.

But they never did.

 

 

Diana Nyad swam from Havana to

Florida, swolen and sunburned, jellyfish

had bit her truth in half, singing Neal Young songs,

counting backwards to 64 in silence, her lips

too sore to speak, just as Sam Cooke might have

had he lived, serenading the worker

in E flat major like a farmer

chopping away the salt of

ecclesiasticus blues.

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[writing mojo]

You captured labor days in all it's cation cautious form, loved how you tied in Sam Cooke and his uplifting impact on music , within the reality over looked, you tie your time your experiences to perceptive nostalgia well. I'd love to explore the landscapes of wisdom in your muses..you always welcome the writer with open arms..saying look at this without a condemning finger

sometimes I think most of the people in this world are soul near death
this now never looks back never understands the struggle it took to get offspring to this crux point.. you my friend find mend that broken bridge and connect to your audience...thank you dana

[a donkey, briefly]

fantastic
must read a few more times

[Jason Henry]

i found myself so desperate to experience everything line of every stanza. i think that's what writing is all about. great job.

[kmartell]

This writing inspires me, that I should stop my slapdash dance ballad style of anywhere anywhere and maybe focus.

I would needs live with your writing style awhile to find the inside parts and then give you a better review than this. I will read more, see you soon. kmartell

[LJW]

Wow.
Did not expect to come across something like this.
What a treat. So much to take in. Think about. The parallels crisscrossing the lines in the sand.
The past predicating the future. The worth of a day's work, the worth of a young poet's mind.

I saw the whole piece in snapshot images of the depression -era vintage, until you spoke of D.Nyad. Neil Young is my favorite lyricist and one of my favorite artists. That musical vibe, the colors of perseverance and victory, wrapped this amazing piece up nicely.

Truly impressive work. 100/100