Waiting on the elevator
For my day of labor
Instant gratification after
Days of waiting safer
Now we talk in secret
Spaces craving the others
Flavor of disgust leaving
Rust in my joints and bones
Masochistic I remember
Pain has always been my
Home.

-First car.

Shiny fine silver,
For
A shy new driver,
Who in time,
Saved
Every dime,
So he
Could buy,
A sweet New ride,
for
A fair Price.

Sonnet: Second Sight (II)
by Michael R. Burch

(Newborns see best at a distance of 8 to 14 inches.)

Wiser than we know, the newborn screams,
red-faced from breath, and wonders what life means
this close to death, amid the arctic glare
of warmthless lights above.
Beware! Beware!—
encrypted signals, codes? Or ciphers, noughts?

Interpretless, almost, as his own thoughts—
the brilliant lights, the brilliant lights exist.
Intruding faces ogle, gape, insist—
this madness, this soft-hissing breath, makes sense.
Why can he not float on, in dark suspense,
and dream of life? Why did they rip him out?

He frowns at them—small gnomish frowns, all doubt—
and with an ancient mien, O sorrowful!,
re-closes eyes that saw in darkness null
ecstatic sights, exceeding beautiful.

Published by The Neovictorian/Cochlea. Keywords/Tags: sonnet, newborn, baby, birth, labor, slap, breath, screams, life, sight, vision, mrbson

everyone has heard of the acorn tale
”Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded.”
everyone has listened to the Little Red Hen
”she made the bread herself, she will eat the bread herself.”
----------------
not everyone has their hands stained with labor
we all need to work together
stop the bickering and name-calling
stop the delusional thinking and help make the bread
we got this - we have to get this!

Brian Hill - 2020 # 249

Have you ever bought a perfume labeled
“Monday in the Fields” ?

It has a faint fragrance where
milkweeds and lilies linger in the air,
as if a gust of wind from the clouds
drifted it towards you.

Slowly but surely the aroma gets stronger,
as if the milkweeds and lilies are gathering
to form a bouquet made especially for you.
You reach out your hand to accept them
but an unexpected musk flows past you.

Suddenly a smell as salty and natural
as the deepest parts of the ocean appears.
An ocean filled with oxidized metal
and fields of brackish seaweed.
It is a distinct and intoxicating smell,
a smell that can only be found in one place.

That place is from the beads of sweat
that drip off the back and forehead of the laborer.
The very laborer who picked the milkweeds and lilies.
The very laborer who works under a scorching sun.
The very laborer who skips meals to work overtime.
The very laborer who helped arrange this scent.

Not every scent is placed in a perfume bottle.
Well...at least not the natural ones.

I don’t accept
I’m not ready
You’re not ready

To say
“I’m sorry”

Because to forgive for me
Is to forget for you

And I’m not ready
For you to forget

I need you to remember
To think
To agonize

As I have remembered
And thought
And agonized

Not as punishment
Sometimes pain is necessary for growth

So I need you to struggle
To grow
To seek to understand

Otherwise your “sorry”
Is a blank canvas
Meant for me to write
The meaning

I refuse to do your labor
To bear this pain alone

I don’t accept
Your “sorry”

They killed John Henry
with a false ideal:
ownership as Realization;
Happiness as being external;
life's vitality as commodity.

They killed John Henry
with a name and a title.

They killed John Henry
with an interested dream.

Prosperity follows labor
And not just “having fun”
My ratio of fun to work?
One to ten, or ten to one?

Prosperity follows service
I ask when the day is done
My time on self or others?
One to ten, or ten to one?

Prosperity follows purpose
Do I use focus (or none)?
Ratio of living on purpose?
One to ten, or ten to one?

Just remember, the next one you choose
Choose wisely-
Be selective,
Of the habits and disguised demons you allow to occupy
Your space
Because truth be told,
As women, we will be their emotional home
And this home is sacred.
Build your pillars high and strong
Made concrete of love, humility, sensitivity, empathy
Radiating an identity of beauty
A distinguished strength.
All may want a glimpse, but--
Only you know the labor of building this foundation;
Brick by brick,
Bare hands,
bleeding day and night,
And you cried yourself to sleep thinking of all you lost
To gain what you have in front of you today.
The one you let in to your sacred abode
Will come to you at day’s lay with all his sorrow,
Vulnerable, expressive, head held low.
A cruel punishment from society to think he does not have the tools
that you have and you are the only one who holds the power to soothe
His battle wounds.
Love this man--
But if one day there is a crack in your pillar
And you are feeling weighed down from pulling a boulder to the top
Every day like Sysiphus;
Crawling out of a pit of despair on your hands and knees
Needing a place to lay your head,
Make sure your man is a man
That understands the strength of your emotions
And his own
To carry and lift you both up without a word,
Like the wind beneath an arctic tern.
Helping you secure your pillars before you fall completely apart
As he knows this is his home too,
So he must care for it like his own.

The Stop & Shop strike v. Game of Thrones.
In Game what’s not made plain
is the condition of the people
compared with warriors and queens.
There’s no mention of land-clearance, tree-felling,
pruning, chopping, digging, hoeing,
weeding, branding, gelding, slaughtering,
salting, tanning, brewing, boiling,
smelting, forging, milling, thatching,
fencing and hurdle-making, hedging, road-mending and haulage.

As for the strike, most of us
supported the cashiers and clerks—
cutting benefits and pensions
when CEOs make millions.
A few pennies more
for ice cream and tofu
a leg up for our neighbors
and comrades in labor.
But don’t get greedy, power-hungry—
we don’t want the supermarket to go out of business
or the Army of the Dead to extinguish us.

A red-tailed hawk observes what small mammals, birds are in the
     clearcut,
awaits the moment to strike.
Three *****, two strikes, full count. Aaron pitched carefully, slow
     strikes and the opposing team scored.
Transit strike. Part-time tutor,
food deliverer, illegal immigrant,
school bus driver, supermarket bagger.
Let labor flow like capital! Full tank of gas!
In your dreams, you kick ***.
In your daydream, you’re breaking bones, killing mean dogs with bare
     hands .
In my childhood dreams, I fought side by side with my best buddies
against the Army of the Dead.
I wake up to a lightning strike and my dream incinerates.

The strike is over, like a thunderstorm.
Still a half dozen or so episodes of Thrones
before it sinks into the past.
Will women save the world?
Anything’s possible.
Nothing changes in Williamstown, Willie, except the seasons.
The wee hours, the bored minutes, the second guesses,
the town sewer department, the collector of taxes.
Pitcher’s elbow, runner’s knee, reader’s eye,
you live until you die.
That’s no answer.
Without the Mexican and Canadian borders
the White Walkers would dissolve like an aspirin in seltzer water.

The sun is up, the strike is over
next episode of Game is Sunday
the White Walkers attack
some of our favorite characters croak
but humanity survives
though the weather is ominous.
The habitable zone around the sun
is moving outward as the orb expands
getting hotter as it grows older.
Earth a billion years ago
was smack in the middle of the turf
but we’re now half-in, half-out
exposed to the sun’s ardor, agony,
a dragon eating its babies, torching cities.
We’re gonna hafta outsmart it
hold Labor Day barbecues on Mars.