The Salt Mines


The salt factory
was a really tough
gig.

That's why I
jokingly call
it the salt mines.

It was 12 hours
per day.
Six a m. until six p.m.

It's one of the
hardest jobs,
I've ever had.

Those bags of
salt were heavy.

Very heavy.

The way that
the machines
were set up was
pure Hell.

Sheer sadism.

As soon as
you'd managed
to move one
big bag of salt

Put it on a pallet,
another would drop
through the hopper.

If you had to
sneeze, or
cough, you'd be
behind, then
there'd be two
heavy bags of
salt to move.

When the pallet
was full, and you
had to move it
with a pump truck.

Put another pallet
in its place.

Well, then the whole
production line would
be filled with big, heavy
bags of salt.

Until they were
stacking up on
top of each other.

Then some would
fall to the floor,
there just wasn't
enough space.

Then you really
had to get stuck
in.

By the time you'd
managed to get rid
ot the backlog, you
would be pouring
with sweat, all of
your muscles nearly
paralysed in pain.

Then, the pallet would
be full again.

And you have to go
through the whole
thing again.

12 hours of that.

I used to regularly
fall asleep on the
bus home.

Either way, I'd
get home
My wife would
have cooked me
an amazing meal.

I'd soon be falling
asleep, face down
in my food, whether
I'd had a drink, or not.

At the weekend,
all I could do was
sleep.

I remember that one
time I slept for a full
twenty - four hours.

That's how tired I was
No amount of money
can make up for wasting
your life like that.

I was only on minimum
wage, anyway, but sixty
hours a week of minimum
wage is still quite a bit of
cash

I lasted as long as the
job did.

Until Xmas, then I was " let
go ",
Thank fuck for that.

Plush Safe


I want to be so good the government kills me

where my phone dings all day
healthy and beloved

the stars see the error of their ways
and dazzle me to sleep

each night

where echoes of your laughter
birth new universes

Interview Questions for a Job Yet to Be Invented

Have you ever demanded, received, or paid a ransom? Seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe? Spent a night in the gorilla cage? Bought a human skull on Etsy? Shared an elevator with the eighteen smallest dwarfs in the city? Laughed so hard you dislocated your jaw? Asked Alexa the actual color of the Red Sea? (Intense turquoise.) Been bound and gagged and stuffed in a wheelie bin? Visited a parent in prison? Shrieked like a peacock or impersonated a disreputable poet with a pointy beard and long wool scarf? Dreamt you were dreaming? Put a smiley face at the end of a sentence? Hummed while performing cunnilingus?

Suffering Pleasure

I lit candles throughout my Studio apartment not so much as to create a romantic or Gothic ambience, but instead to be able to  navigate around my four hundred square foot living space with a small amount of light. Evidently, it seems my memory has been on a bender. Once again it got drunk and forgot to pay the electric bill. The Electric and Power guy pointed out I've used that somewhat creative as well as almost humorous excuse far too often. The novelty has worn off with the consequence  being orders to confiscate the Electric Meter and return it to the office. Which meant he couldn't just turn it upside down and push it back in. The company mid-level suits  had become sabe to me pulling it out then placing it back into the service restoring my power after the power guy left. I guess I'll be playing pioneer for a couple of days.  However, the neighbors are leaving on vacation for a month in two days, so I can jump their power and their Cable.  Then I'll try to get my T.V. out of hock or maybe just borrow one of my neighbors TV's.  This guy will be living like a suburban scumbag.

"This has to stop Santiago. There's no future in what you refer to as a recreational activity." I said out loud.

"Ya I know." I answered back with a four a.m. honesty.

"When do you think  that  might happen? Do you envision it as a revelation or an epiphany?  Maybe an intervention,  or a never-fail cure, incarceration."

"It doesn't matter. You've gotta get clean." My voice echoed in the near empty apartment

 "Ya it'll happen. I just can't say when."  I answered back to  myself in a sincere tone.  I stabbed  the syringe deep into my vein. I didn't  even have to pull back on the plunger to register.  My dark, thick, rich, red, blood  billowed into it as a preview of the explosion about to erupt inside my body.

Boom!

Immaterial

 
Do you ever feel
You haven’t looked
At the sky
Enough?
Not taken in
The stars?
Or the mountain?
Or her face
Even though your eyes
Find themselves
Absorbed constantly
Almost like
Osmosis
Sight loses to feel
Like memory
Impressionist
Brush strokes
Coax and tickle
Senses
With smatterings
Of taste
And tendrils
Mental shards
Scatter
A reflection of
Moments
To chew
And glue with
Saliva
And blood
A collage of
Sand
In the shape
Of a mountain,
A painted sky,
Her face
Full of our life.

Guns ‘R Us

“Your rights end
where mine begin”

The guns and ammo
guy’s t-shirt said.

Was selling targets
of Obama’s and Biden’s

faces with bull’s eyes
dead center in their

foreheads. Buy in bulk,
or spend a yard,

and receive, free, targets
of #44’s and #46’s

extended families, no extra
charge. All persons

purchasing items are
automatically eligible

to win a modified-for-
maximum-effect AR.

Void where prohibited
by law.

the unwanted cloak

while i shimmered
in the milky way
afloat unborn
my birth waited
like the gallows
& at last they
dragged me
to the apparatus
& looped a noose
over my silver hat
& the trap door
flapped its dark wing
& i dropped
into a bone-lined
cloak of terrible meat
dangling by a red greasy
braid of umbilical
my blue tongue unquiet



yr plans mean zero

first day of june
in the graveyard
6 feet above idle bones
little islands
of bustling anthills
dot the plots

Santa hates the working man

 
At my job
they give you
100 dollars
for each of
you’re first
four donations
of plasma
as long as
your vitals
are within
an acceptable
range to donate
I laugh when
we call it a donation
since most people
only come for the money
two day before
Christmas and a
forty some year old
has a pulse rate
of 120 bpm
I joke and ask him
what he’s taking
and he says
I got fired
from my job
today  I worked
at that plant in town
that’s been on strike
for the last six months
the strike we settled
earlier this week
and today
I got fired for my part
in the whole thing

standard procedure
in my job at
the plasma center
is to offer a recheck
after the donor sits
for 15 minutes
so I ask him if
he has time to
wait around
to see if it will
come down
he says he is
pretty sure it
won’t not two
days before Christmas
not with having
three kids
and just as I
am deciding
I am just going
to change his
number just
pass him anyway
he sees it
in my eyes
and says don’t
no reason we
should both
be unemployed
at Christmas
then he walks
back to the lobby
and out the door
while I finish my shift

hating myself more
and more each
and every hour.

Me and Bob, Joe and Marie

We sit like schlubs in the bleacher seats.

Joe.
I should have married Joe.
Mother knew best.
We’d be in box seats; even better
those luxury boxes, with the giant TVs
appys and cocktails, elbows rubbed
with the ball players.

Instead I’m with Bob in the bleachers.

It’s loud and it smells; sun baking my head
beer spilled all over, by the fat drunk that leans on me.
Chick that he’s with, stinking like beans
and green onions.

Mother was right.
I’m hearing her voice now.
“You could love a rich, same as a poor man.”

But I missed the boat.
I married Bob. Joe married Marie.

Mom preferred Joe, but I sit here with Bob -
like two schlubs in the bleacher seats,
while Marie lives my best life.



Tampons and Tanqueray 

“Lay down with dogs, you’ll wake up
with puppies.”

“That slut in 4C, knocked up, having
twins.”

“Ya gotta get in there, scrub like you mean
it, or your house will stay filthy”

Bernice of the lacquered up beehive, 
cracking her gum while opinning. And the

gals on the bench, while the men went to
work, living paycheck to paycheck, with the
dream to move up from the projects to suburbs.

South side of Queens, the ladies speak trash 
talk, tampons and Tanqueray, stuffed bras and
stuffed cabbage

making me wish, that I’d snuck out to Woodstock.

Friday Night In Chicago

Friday night in Chicago, I head to the salsa bar.
I love the music and I love those Latin women,
Eventhough there’s always the threat of you
Getting your balls cut off…just a tradition.
The party is lively, the liquor flows freely.
And Juan says, “Let’s go home…Mejico.”
The plan:  load up on booze, drive all night,
Cross the border in the morning, get home,
Spend the day with the folks and drive back.
Seems a good idea to everybody.  My car, I drive.
Four amigos and me race south on Highway 57.
With any luck, John Law won’t slow us down.
It’s a fiesta party on wheels.  Music blasting,
Laughter, dead soldiers thrown out the window.
Fifty miles south, the inevitable starts to settle in.
Luis announces that he starts a new job Monday.
Paco says his sister said she could just watch
The kids overnight.  He needs to pick them up.
Martin calls them pussies, then starts to sober up.
To his horror, he realizes that he left his girlfriend
At the club with the wolves and no way home.
Juan don’t give a shit either way.  He just wants
Us to pull over somewhere so he can take a piss.
I stop for gas, turn the car around, head north.
No one seems to notice, they’re all too tired.
We reach the bar early evening.  Time to pay.
Paco’s sister had been calling the club all day.
He’s not in the ‘hot water’, he’s now in the fire.
Martin meets his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.
Luis will make it to work, Juan buys another round.
Months later, after the memory of this fiasco fades,
We’ll be on the road again with the same result.