Steel**

In the morning,
even before the sun got up,
you could smell it.
Thick fog
covered everything with dust.
The dust from
tall chimneys
spewing out
the mornings breakfast of ****.
It was like this
every minute,
every day,
every year
since the foundry was born.
It was fog-stench;
you breathed it,
you ate it,
you drank it;
it defined you
then spit you out
as lung cancer,
breast cancer,
the Big "C".
And then you were no more.
~~~
I lasted 10 years
til they kicked me out.
10 years,
and then they modernized
until the foundry disappeared
one day in its fog.
Today it covers another city,
in another country
carrying its dusty fog
to identify another people
with its cancer.
Another people who once
had beauty and lives.
~~~
10 years
carrying hand held  red lava,
pushing it into molds
fast - sparks flying -
burning skin;
and above this din, words -
"hurry boy,
don't let it freeze."
~~~
There are many of us now,
roaming dust covered streets,
spewed out
like last nights trash,
wondering who we are.

( written under this pen name ~~redzone 2/12/14)
Aztec Warrior
Note: I worked in a steel foundry
for 10 years carrying 100 pound ladles
of molten steel; pouring into sand molds.
It was heavy, hot ad ***** work.
I have many leg burn scars to prove it.

© 2014 redzone