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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

John Henry


A country man and railroad man, both he
And all the rugged workers on the line,
From future, past, dismembered.  Faces shine;
The eerie darkness glows.  His limbs swing free,
To wage one useless war against the sea
By blasting earth.  The measured holes combine,
Two seven-footers his; the drill’s one nine.
He won and died of it, shrewd prophecy!

A man today would never even start
To pit himself against the iron beast
And give his best before he’d say he’d tried.
The cold machine has atrophied his heart,
As limbs will shrink within a cast.  At least
When Henry burst his heart, a man had died.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Called

-Niagara Falls

Colored
sparks of splintered
light through prisms break
the shallow wall of
gray.
Rolling
waters thunder in falls
of endless height over the edge of the
world: just beyond, the deep blue mountains
of mankind’s desire
rise.
Notes,
the language
past the point of words,
search out the hidden heart, the
inmost core of
being.
Every day the silver cord is fraying.
He who glories, let him
Glory in the
Lord.