A foundry’s stench, the rolling mill’s clamor,
the jack hammer’s concerto leaving traces
between worn ears. Oh sing me a bucket shop blues
under an accordion’s spell
with blood notes cutting through the black air
for the working life, for the rotating shifts
for the day’s diminishment and rebirth.
The lead seeps into your skin like rainwater
along stucco walls. It blends into the fabric of cells,
the chemistry of bone, like a poisoned paint brush
coloring skies of smoke, devouring like a worm
that never dies, a fire that’s never quenched.
The blast furnace bellows out a merciless melody
as molten metal runs red down your back
as assembly lines continue rumbling
into your brain, into forever,
while rolls of pipes crash onto brick floors.
The blast furnace spews a lava of insipid dreams,
a deathly swirl of screams, of late night wars
with a woman, a child’s book of fear,
a hunger of touch, a hunger of poetry,
a daughter’s hunger for laughter.
It is the sweat of running, of making love,
a penitence pouring into ladles of slag.
It is falling through the eyes of a whore,
a red-core bowel of rot,
a red-eyed train of refugees,
a red-scarred hand of unforgiveness,
a red-smeared face of spit.
It is blasting a bullet through your brain,
the last dying echo of one who enters
the volcano’s mouth to melt.