FROM THE LINTEL

Let me on through, Janus.

I’m standing at your door,

rapping my knuckles sore;

standing on your floor

is degrading,

evermore.

Let me on through, it is

my time---I hunkered down

a decade, carrying the world on

my back, pulled myself up

by the bootstraps:

work---forevermore.

Let me on through, two-face:

you see ahead and behind

but not what’s standing,

starring you in the eye:

let me on through,

or....

I’ll knock you from the lintel.

I’ll knock you

from the lintel.

***

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Timber from the keystone! Rise

of the unsung Titans, the grunts

in the trenches; if I’m knocked

down to carry the world on

my shoulders---no matter, I

do it anyway. Tax, tax, tax,

take what you will; ax, ax, ax,

live by what you will

---no more.

INDUSTRIAL PARK

Young black spruces, ten

feet apart, frosted by

warm (late) March snow, line

along a demised rail-

road (now overtaken by

grey brush, thickets and trash

trees); the path a snow floor

Black turning tractor tire

marks swoosh through white

parking lines---by the

     hundreds

Light posts overlook

the adjoining parking lot,

(wet black)---two four-storey

blue fluid tanks

loom

                titanic behind

THE ENGINEER

I’ll be a train

on the brink of derail---

but I’ll be a train.

My pores hiss

steam out of coal-fire,

furnaced deep and hot

white: entropy: its got

to go out, somewhere.

The time is now

and the place is you.

ALIEN HEADS

Details---

I get chewed

at least once

a day at work

about details---

they change

are forgotten

or disappear

daily. I am

criticized

about details

manifested

in

implemented

by

corporate heads

---alien to

my own.

CITY HAWK

I

A hawk hunts the grass between east- and westbound lanes of I-480. It walks stiffly, swinging brown and white tail feathers, lowering its hooked beak, looking for carrion.

The speeding traffic should scare’em. Yeah, it should. But he ambles along like an old man field-searching for flint arrowheads, or, like an old woman picking berries from a thicket.

To the hawk, the city hawk, the verge is a bank---the light pole a tree---the pavement a river---the cars a current with a rubber-asphalt roar---rushing water. It should scare’em. Yeah, it should scare’em.

II

A hawk perches

the arm of

a streetlamp

one of many

lamps lining

the highway

(two-way river)

He sits

and watches

for something

moving and small,

he sits---for he

has nothing else

but to do

He sees a jittering

black dot, hunger

aches hollow bones

and he dives, tall

buildings, traffic about him

FIRE CHEIF

Cruises along

wide black street

in a red

and black Crown

Victoria, smoking

a stubbed cigar,

window cracked

smoke serpents

out above

the guilded

yellow lettering:

City of Brookpark