Sunday, July 22, 2012

Going,Coming,Gone



Who walked through fog and
    curtains of cinders, thinking of
the soft thighs behind cheap printed dresses,
  Beer and frying onions
talking about all the wise ways of  the
shore, the cards and dice, the smoke and growl
    joked about things they couldn't
understand like pussy and God,?
    Who forgot how to ask for bread and salt
 in their native tongue, shedding the cadence and
  words of their departed lands,
              incomprehensible to their parents and
  unknown to the dirt they left behind?
    Who were the ones that didn't wait
   to be given permission to get a leg up, or
        over and just start some shit
           if the deal wasn't right?
who got bloody hands from unforgiving steel
   and canvas straps, but kept up the pace
     not sleeping or crying
                ?
-- It was them, it was us
     They were who we are now
     and we might hear them as we
        walk by drunk with the night
           past the world that they
              raised up that turned  to rust,
  a whisper dry as dust,
          "Get up, it's time to work
                wake up, it's getting late"

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