STEEL

.. some factory blues..

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 slag.

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.

~~redzone 2/12/14

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 dirty work.

Author's Note

thanks for reading...

Reviews

[Sami Khalil]

"here are many of us now,
roaming dust covered streets,
spewed out
like last nights trash,
wondering who we are."

You are a hardworking man and this proves it. You are also a thinker for you always question the validity of things whether right or wrong. I have felt your pain and frustration here. They treat us as numbers and machines and when they are done with us they kick us to the curbs. Thank you for sharing your journey with us in this harsh world...:)..................