Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TOWERS OF SIMON RODIA; FOR HOWARD W. SWENSON 1903-1081, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: Trapped in a tunnel Last Line: The day he locked the door on eden. Subject(s): Labor & Laborers; Rodia, Simon (1875-1959); Watts Towers, Los Angeles (1921-1955); Work; Workers | ||||||||
Trapped in a tunnel of white tile and urinals, my day's laboring shine of sanitary rectangles, I crouch against the antiseptic glare reamed by the black roar of the train. It engulfs me and I wake - the house still quivering the smear of diesel horn as soft as pollen on the night - and think, "I've dreamt my life - tile by day and trains all night." Air emptied of the diesel's horn becomes so dense with orange blossoms you'd think it something you could weigh. Stink of bud and fruit creation sits, a cat upon my chest to stifle breath. At forty, more than half life gone, too late to brand a name upon my century's thigh, I brace my arm to wrestle, hand against my time. I bend the rods, and these my arching bones I flesh with gray cement round as a laboring arm whose spread muscles hold taut my tattoos made from the broken bits of every day's bright color, of Spanish arguments across the street. This chipped and cracked confetti of our lives I manage into patterns on these limbs which curve like blooms of iris. My larger flowers enclose the smaller, like viscera or womb-bound children, or an echo if it could be held inside the voice that made it. I built my blossoming limbs beside the track for thirty years until I knew, although I might not finish them, they had completed me. Perhaps God felt the same the day he locked the door on Eden. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER WORKING SIXTY HOURS AGAIN FOR WHAT REASON by HICOK. BOB DAY JOB AND NIGHT JOB by ANDREW HUDGINS BIXBY'S LANDING by ROBINSON JEFFERS ON BUILDING WITH STONE by ROBINSON JEFFERS LINES FROM A PLUTOCRATIC POETASTER TO A DITCH-DIGGER by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS IN CALIFORNIA: MORNING, EVENING, LATE JANUARY by DENISE LEVERTOV |
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