@
Witty, ext granted, chap.
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"Light Work"
Electric Co. Smith
hauls coal up the ladder to his cellar
sweating amber
fanned jet grease hits the handles
soaking his feeble pension-pants in gully water
chain gang Rolodex man
sings songs for the dusty centrifuge
as if a lamp-lit sermon could ignite
halls of sycamore with soul; barn burners, steel welders,
cannonball factory staff men, the whole lot
Splashes in a job pool
Scattershot! Scattershot! Scattershot!
goes the molten cytoclops
eyes aglow on avenue of caverns, city Grendel
Bunsen burner palace
too stiff to react to the callous rifts that formed around
harshly sun-exposed billboards licked with flame
Be thankful to electricians
for this whole post-megalithic enterprise
Shone Babe Ruth the way, they did
and the Arabs in the desert
brought the molasses of sunshine to breakfast brewsters
from Kabul to Nantucket
What a light show, how far it stretched
Working class magnetism brunch
adding sparks to family homes worldwide
allowing holiday sweets, homemade pies, radio broadcasts
a properly illuminated showcase
even though many clusters
short-circuited before they could become empires
blips on the cosmic-cultural radar
Dear lord, we give thanks for the blessing of light
in our homes and on our street corners
in our kitchens and on our construction caps
over our cradles and above our shadowy gravestones
It beats power grid hospice