A secret is granted
any curb captain
listening.
To speak rarely and
with roots.
Blake wears a hardhat,
drives a forklift for
Metal Products.
Whitman collects
unemployment in the mail.
New words
are mined coal.
They are the drink
from bags,
the suicide in jail,
and
the housekeeper
called only by her first name.
Keeping pace
with a secret at
the speed of light
is the wisdom felt on crowded subways.
Categories:
hardhat, jobs, metaphor, poetry, poets,
Form: Personification
My child has ADHD, cry, cry, cry. Whine. Whine Whine.
I am trying to pay attention, but this parent’s child has every ailment.
She wants a 504, and IEP, and any extra intervention, as there is always something.
She is in my office more than all the other parents put together, and I have hundreds of parents.
An incessantly annoying tick of a loud clock demands my full attention.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Man, is that thing loud!
I’m sorry. Can you please repeat this? I ask her.
She has not stopped talking, so I try to catch up.
He has ADHD, a broken foot, a sore finger, and he lost his hardhat yesterday.
Your child?
No. My husband.
I try much harder to listen this time.
But then a fly lands on my desk.
Man is that thing loud!
Categories:
hardhat, life, self, work,
Form: Free verse
You wouldn’t go with me into the old mine –
even a guided tour with hardhat, miners’ carbide
lamp to glitter rich metals revealed by the pick’s
rough stroke. Remember the mystery-mine
in the museum, a child-size cubicle, we had to
duck to fit inside. And there, by magic
of black light, the walls glowed brilliant against
subterranean night. Forget the legends
of haunted shafts, tommyknockers, other
nameless beings of the dark. Forget
the chance of cave-in, dust explosion, fire,
toxic air. Think of it as letting your
self drift down to sleep, perhaps to dream
in gemstone color, silver, and gold.
Categories:
hardhat, adventure, fear,
Form: Free verse
I donned my best Sunday working coveralls
Plopped the hardhat on my waiting head.
Just another twelve hours of service rendered
To an employer who cares not if im live or dead
Ive seen days and months and years fly by
As I travel horizons far and wide
You become bitter to the loves lost along the way.
But you learn to bury the pain deep inside.
Ive fought with men with hardened hearts
Who poured out their hurts in the fists they threw.
But in the next Port of Call all was forgiven
And you would share an ale or two.
The land dwellers never witness the struggles of this life
Or the burdens of each cross we bear
Or how much we anticipate coming home.
And falling into loving arms that still miss and care.
Ive seen young lads come up the gangway
Thinking they have found an adventurers paradise
And watch their smiles turn to grimmaces
Once the sea steals their soul and life.
Its a job unlike no other
Where your gone for months that just drag on
And when you finally make it home again
You find your feeling like you dont belong.
Categories:
hardhat, boat, life,
Form: Rhyme
Brand new overalls
Oil resistant steel toed boots
Hardhat forgotten
By Robb A. Kopp
Categories:
hardhat, work
Form: Senryu
Men at work, bumper to bumper
tensile traffic, thick black bitumen.
Everything seems to last longer
then that grey granulated concrete
that extends from Bodega, Cali-
fornia to Savannah, Georgia.
Blacktop pot-fill smells like
the solid and searing work of roofers;
hardhat knuckle down workers,
men that stretch skyscraper towers,
or suspend themselves over
the ledge of the Golden Gate Bridge.
If only this endless line of steel
on rubber wheels could steam roll
past the frustrated flashing lights
and pinstriped lattes honking horns.
If only these orange jump suites,
(sloth shaped men on armrest shovels,)
spent less time blathering like this poem,
we’d all be able to get to work.
Categories:
hardhat, angst, funny, life, parody,
Form: Quatrain