The five ton cast iron sheet
Hit him above the hips.

His top half survived in hospital
For a few days.

Use certified utilities when
Lifting with a crane.

Don't use a knife for a screwdriver.
Don't challenge a step ladder.

Don't use your partner as a
Lever to lift your own ego;

The half that's left will only
Live for days.

You're running around with your head cut off
And your circus personality
Your face is ****** and sad, with those dark rings around your eyes, and all the years you've seen have made you plain curmudgeony
Your silt pockets run dry to the earth, their face is laced with ******* and dirt
Your mace head is running wiry with hair, and you wouldn't be surprised if you found a rats nest in there
You've been casted a role, that you forgot how to play, from all the years of half-assed hearsay
You said you'd give me your word, and chilled with guilt, you fiddled and farted away

We are the Protestant Proletariat
Our revolution is to divide
En masse by fit or fad
To tear down monuments
Destroy traditions
Install new leaders
And vote them down

An unchanging God
We celebrate in changing ways
We leave the old behind
Celebrate we no high masses
Except to exit or to enter
Events and fads and ideologies
We term “movements”

Celebrate we no liturgies
All things new are we
No paean or hymn
We leave untouched
But change the tune
Update the words
To fit the current thought

No vaulted ceilings
Nor Gothic spires we claim
Our sanctuary ceilings are low
Our ceremonies are low
No High Church are we
Protestants have earned a name
And never can remain the same.

Just last week he was on his knees
In my mother’s kitchen
Scrubbing the yellow flowers’
Darkened dimples.
“The floor’s still good,
But the wax has darkened.
It’s been in there 30 years now!”
He told me on the phone.

Nothing needed replacing
If there was any usefulness left:
An old floor, or pair of jeans,
An old Ford or length of wire;
Use and re-use,
Or if something were not useful
At the moment,
It was stored (sometimes tagged)
In some haphazard pile for later.

Today we walked out on the place
He lived fifty-four years…
Scratched our heads and
Wondered where to begin.

“You can clean some of this scrap up…
Make some money,”
I say to my farmer brother.
“No!” his quick reply,
“Never know when something
Might come in handy.”

I stand there, looking
At the tottering empire of scrap,
Broken equipment,
Peeling, graying sheds.
I realize that in some ways
Dad isn’t really gone…
That I am the one who has left
The family farm up on the hill
Out in the sun and wind
And the seldom rains.