all the lost battles, all the unopened bills, the eyes of all the satellites whirling overhead, the sanctimonious sermons, the fatcat's bottom line, the hieroglyphs of wall street, the meager unemployment checks, the cigarettes, the beer, the numbing static hiss of better lives stretched on a canvas made of empty light, the fury and the sorrow, the futility of expectations unmet, the gutteral growling thunder of the shotgun, the whirring of the zippered bag being drawn closed: in the wake of these things there is a silence, complete and everlasting. |
| photo taken within Nolan Refractories shortly before it was completely destroyed |
the ceaseless deafening clatter,
the grindings of the cogs,
the gutteral, growling thunder of the pistons,
the hiss of combined compounds,
the molten alchemy
of making glass and bricks and steel for the world,
the chortle of the fan belts,
the crunching of the die press,
the whirring of conveyors ferrying boxes too and fro
via sputtering trucks to destinations unknown,
the holler of the foreman,
the bitterness of the backache,
the chemical burns and mangled bones,
the joking lifelong friends
and the bitching about the boss:
in the wake of these things there is a silence,
complete and everlasting.
the grindings of the cogs,
the gutteral, growling thunder of the pistons,
the hiss of combined compounds,
the molten alchemy
of making glass and bricks and steel for the world,
the chortle of the fan belts,
the crunching of the die press,
the whirring of conveyors ferrying boxes too and fro
via sputtering trucks to destinations unknown,
the holler of the foreman,
the bitterness of the backache,
the chemical burns and mangled bones,
the joking lifelong friends
and the bitching about the boss:
in the wake of these things there is a silence,
complete and everlasting.
| complete and everlasting |
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