Today is known as Labor Day. A day when we honor the working men and women who contribute much to the world through their efforts. Today’s task is easy. Write a work or labor poem. It could be your specific job or function. It could be your dream job. It could be a poem about “going into labor”. Whatever you choose to write, make it work!
WALT’S WORK
LOVEWORKS
We struggle to start,
with a passionate heart
and no idea how a plea of insanity
can render all of humanity smitten,
as if bitten by the love bug.
Any amorous slug would suffice,
and never look twice when the first glance
will cover any chance you have
to topple heart over heels.
You will know how it feels
when your mouth gets dry and try
as you might, you can’t fight the urge
as others delight in your plight.
Your hands will sweat, and you will get
tongue tied inside. You will quiver
and shake; make a fool of yourself.
Stutter, stammer and throw glamor out
the window, it is not pretty.
But anything worth while in life is
worth the effort. Make it!
Take it as it comes; accept a little shove.
And above all else, love is work.
Keep working on love.
***
It has been decided that Mondays will be our prompt day, with Friday being our Form exploration. Special discussions and Poetry Projects can spring up when the mood strikes, so please stay posted!
Not Working
I tried til my brain fried
I just couldn’t make it work
the words would not stay in place
they spilled over the page
in a race to see which one
could get to the period first
the worst kind of finish
syllables tripping over each other
and rhymes stepping on the
feet of meters
I tried to make this poem work
but vowels went on strike and
consonants refuse to
work alone
my muse will just sit idle
until some agreement can be penned
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Some poems are like that, Candy. But glad to see you kept working at it!
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Pingback: Labor of Love | echoes from the silence
LABOR OF LOVE
My story begins…
Mom was on her way to a
Labor Day picnic
when she went into labor.
She said it was “no picnic”.
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Great title, Paula. and cute resolution to your poem! Love it.
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Thanks. And…true story from many moons ago.
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I had no doubt! 😃
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JOBS WEAR NO COLLARS
“Eager to Create Blue-Collar Jobs, a Small Business Struggles”
I love to work.
But, it is always work.
Hard, demeaning,
satisfying, trying,
seemingly endless.
Cutting like a hot knife
through spoiled cheese;
stinking to high heaven.
I’m thinking about how my father
would come home from his clerk
position at the steel plant roll shop.
Yet, I can’t recall if his collar was
white, or blue or chartreuse,
(there’s no use thinking too deeply)
All I knew is we were never without,
food, or clothing or shelter
from his sometimes helter-skelter inebriation.
This was our life station. Children
of a once-steel town. Not down on our luck,
just lucky to be. We could see up from there
and that became our fervent goal,
to leave my heart and soul to the hometown
and expecting to escape with the rest of me intact!
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Pingback: JOBS WEAR NO COLLARS – THROUGH THE EYES OF A POET'S HEART
United, Not …
The Chilean composer (Ortega) wrote a song:
‘The people united will never be defeated’
based on a shouted slogan for social change
under the great Allende (three months before
he fell to Pinochet). It was the time
of uniting classical music with popular
melodies and the instruments of folk.
The American (Rzewski) then created
a piano opus: thirty-six variations
on the theme. And now on Labour Day
in Australia we shout the slogan, changed:
‘The workers united will never be
defeated!’ – although the fact that
Labour Day happens on different days
in different States makes you wonder
if Governments are making us
subtly disunited, or maybe not so subtly
when you think about many other
things that go on – like tax breaks
for huge corporations, like …
well, so much (attitudes and rulings;
erosion of wages, safeguards and conditions)
which in the end, gradually, without
bloodshed, make us feel bloody defeated.
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Thanks for this bit of stark reality, Rosemary. I does make one wonder about the intent of these staggered celebrations.
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There’s too much looking on bright side, she says. She has long black hair and a Russian accent that makes me nostalgic for Boris and Natasha because not everything was bleak and fatalistic during the Cold War, and then I realise that I’m right there looking on the bright side. And she says, lots of people, (not knowing why I’m looking at her with a things-were-better-back-then grin), worked very hard but were paid very very bad. Not enough money for nice breakfast or bread and dill pickle with dinner. And then she explains that her childhood only lacked for what she didn’t need, and I realise my childhood was much the same but she was raised with Khrushchev hammering his shoe on a desk whilst I hammered chalk dust out of the classroom erasures as punishment for talking during lessons and disturbing my neighbours. I did such a fine job of clapping chalk dust that it became my permanent job after school all during 4th grade. It was my first poorly paid job, you might say. And then she asks if I’ve ever been to Coney Island — says she was there once. On Labour Day while she visited her cousin in Jersey. A person could get lost in America, she says, and no one would miss you because no one would know you’re lost.
a wafer of light
it plays loose across your hair
days stretch green as grass
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I love the imagination shown in your story.
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Love this haibun, Misk. Tells a heartful tale. Very nice.
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Pingback: Haibun for Gnome Poems – The Journal
Caregiver
Care for childlike man
Nonverbal who says a lot
Cookie—one clear word
Plays songs on a vacuum hose
Leaps about at loud noises
Writer
Paint pictures with words
Create people and their worlds
Inspire with insights
Dig out treasures from Scripture
Tickle with fun anecdotes
College Student
Give myself pep talks
Write essays, questions, comments
Inspired by works
Put to sleep by some others
Plodding with eyes on the goal
Housekeeper
Relentless cleaning
Squeeze it in when I have time
Aim to make a home
where folks I love love to live
Wish I was Bewitched
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Love the vacuum cleaner songs!
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All noble endeavors here, Connie. Well expressed.
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Labor Day 2017
Stop to honor those who came before
who opened the door to the great West.
Who trudged the long miles over endless prairie,
across almost insurmountable mountains;
paying the high price, even with the lives
of their families, to settle this land,
to build the railroads, bridges, and highways.
Despite the hardships, heartaches, and tears,
they endured so that today we can sit back and say,
“Happy Labor Day,” to one and all.
May we never forget, nor fail to contribute our labor,
to the great gift given us in this place.
Note: On this weekend in Kansas City, we celebrate SantaCaliGon Days (short for Santa Fe, California, and Oregon trails) where the wagon trains left from Independence, MO to begin their five month trek to establish new homes in the 1950s and 60s. A friend, Theresa Hupp, has a couple of great books on Amazon.com about this period in “Lead Me Home” and “Now I’m Found.”
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Great lesson here, Sally. We would be nothing if it were not for those who worked before us! Thank you.
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Yes. How easily we forget.
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You asked for it.
Chas. Bukowski Works
This is the way I imagine it. Charles
Bukowski is still writing. He’s sitting
on the floor of his hotel. Called the Great
Eternal Flophouse it is both heaven
and hell. Which, may depend on the plumbing
on your particular floor. Bukowski’s
room has a wash basin and a closet-
sized space with a toilet and tin shower
but no door. That doesn’t matter: no one
visits. The bed with its sagging springs sees
no action. There’s a dresser in the room,
with a blank frame where its mirror hasn’t
been replaced. An eternally dusty
faded red armchair waits by the window.
Bukowski sits on the bare wood floor. Back
against the wall, a yellow legal pad
and a new yellow pencil next to him.
Pack of cigarettes and a souvenir
ash tray in the shape of a sombrero.
Bottle and glass. Because it’s Labor Day–
the American version of May Day–
Bukowski, like Whitman down the hall, like
dos Pasos and Steinbeck and Hemmingway,
Dorothy Parker–it’s a big goddamn
flophouse and I could go on–is writing
to honor the American working
man (and woman). The floor hasn’t been mopped
in three months of Sundays. The housekeeper
slipped on a broken step and shattered her
right kneecap. Surgeon who fixed it said that
the pieces reminded him of a wooden
puzzle map of the Lower Forty-Eight
that he used to love when he was a kid.
Bukowski’s brain is on fire. All the words
pertaining to the great American
worker are up there like sheep in a pen.
To be their shepherd, he thinks, is good work.
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Arvada, you know I love how your mind works. I don’t understand it, but I love it! You make me think and that scares me just as much sometimes.
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Don’t ask me where Arvada came from. My thumbs are askew!
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Wow!
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WORKING CLASS FATHER
My father never missed a day of work
In all his years of labor: from dishwasher
When he was a teenager new to this land
To welder at the Curtiss-Wright plant
In Woodridge where daily he inhaled
The noxious fumes that in the end proved
The cause of his sad passing.
We sons and daughters learned from his example:
Pretend we were too sick to go to school?
Why, we wouldn’t dare!
He was a fine man of principle who refused
To follow the work antics of the sheepish crowd.
“I do what’s right,” he’d say. “To hell with
who likes, who doesn’t like! Remember this:
Give an honest day’s work for an honest
day’s pay. Don’t look to fool the boss.
He’s a worker too. You want him to be fair?
Then you be fair with him!”
My father conducted his life strictly
by the rules. Into his 80s, he still walked
straight as a soldier, his head lifted high.
That man was unafraid to stare life in the eye.
He taught us there’s no shame in hard honest work;
Still, he encouraged us to go to college
So we would earn more, working with our minds.
“In your success,” he’d tell us, “never look down
on those who work with their hands. We workers
built this country!” and you could hear the emotion,
the pride, choking in his throat.
His voice would tremble when he’d say,
“In the walls of every tunnel,
down in the dark subways, all those miles
across every single bridge,
you’ll find a piece of us. God bless the working class!
We made America what she is today.”
#
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Our foundations are forge by the lessons and examples of our parents. You exemplify all your parents have instilled in you, Sal! A poignant poem.
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Thank you!
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