It’s raining, cold,
well after midnight.
Snow is almost gone,
pockmarked, dirty.
Streets are nearly quiet.
Here and there an
auto splashes through.
Tenements are dark,
renters soundly sleeping.
Storefronts are locked,
barred and steel grated.
Gritty, rough, this stretch of city,
where hard working,
hard drinking, hard loving,
scarred, nearly forgotten souls
find solace, not quite community,
some semblance of home.
Nelson Algren would approve,
the struggle for life,
its meaning,
or lack there of,
abundantly clear
for all to see.
“Fuck, fuck those bastards,”
a worker curses, smarting
to punch the very walls.
An empty pot he kicks
will catch the leaking water
dripping down from up above.
“What? What’s the matter, hon?”
her voice from down the hall.
“Nothing, nothing, Sal.
Go back to sleep.
Things will be OK.”
But they might not.
Not really.
Miles and miles from here
twenty cows are stomping,
snorting in a barn.
They await their farmer
come empty
bulging udders
full of milk and heavy cream.
Not easy a farmer’s life,
tied to land
and nature’s rhythms,
swamped by markets’
ups and downs,
stressed by disease,
and pests, and weather
never certain.
These two,
the worker and the farmer,
share the same America,
though not without unease
at how today become tomorrow looks
compared to yesterday.
Someone, some few, a selfish many
are sucking at the zest
that fuels their will
to press ahead with hope
that things will be OK
when clearly they might not.
Despite the gritty
sweaty gnawing beauty
of them and theirs
and what surrounds,
Nelson Algren,
sadly and forlornly,
would likely not approve.
|
Wednesday, March 19th, 2014
Philadelphia
PA
USA
|
