sun struck laborers....come home to nightfall bread
repose in his kingdom
Categories:
laborers, 7th grade, 8th grade,
Form: Monoku
Beloved Jesus, You love the laborers
who bend their backs in the fields of farms
neath the brimming sun,
and those who build,
those along the highways,
those who serve,
those who toil at sea.
Our prayer for the laborers,
to rest their bodies and souls in
the comfort of Your steadfast
redeeming presence,
with our deep gratitude and love,
Amen. ~
Categories:
laborers, 6th grade, 7th grade,
Form: Free verse
Let the laborers rest,
like poetry, the rhyme is in their job,
as they hammer the nails,
and man the railroads,
maids clean someone else's toilets,
others fell giant trees,
as the waitresses twirl like a ballerina
balancing plates amid the din of a
crowded diner,
migrant farmworkers bend in the
savage sun's glare to pick the produce.
Let the laborers rest,
their aching bodies in sleep's bliss,
like poetry, the rhyme is in their job,
it pumps their hearts and blood,
the rhythm of the workers of the world.
A fellow laborer of my brother,
was dying of lung cancer,
he toiled up to four days before he died.
God let this laborer rest,
and He closed His servant's eyes. ~
Categories:
laborers, 6th grade, 7th grade,
Form: Free verse
In his mid-30s but still a boy
Given $14.50 an hour and 12 hour shifts
Six days a week
His driver’s license confiscated
For five slung beers over a night long ago
Cost him $10,000
Contributed to the system
Of judges bailiffs lawyers and Presidents
All residents
Of the lakes and new mansions up north on weekends
Five years it will take him
To pay them for his sin.
Out here on the way to work
There are no buses
So the boy joins a line of third world refugees
Walking an hour and a half a day
Each way
Through the sweat of summer
And the snow of winter
From Greatdale Apartments
To the soda pop company’s bottling plant
He limps down the shoulder of King’s Road
Texting a screen scream to his desperate dad
“I can’t do this anymore!”
This
The only demand the son can manage
While Escalades
Roar by him
Side mirrors whisking within inches of his elbows
The thought of the American Dream
Or even the idea of a violent union revolution
Pouring out of him
Like his 10 cent returns
After work at the Party Store.
Categories:
laborers, character, judgement, money, political,
Form: Free verse
Boy gets up at six
Needs no alarm of complaint
To shake
The brief night of sleep
From his hay-cropped hair
Brushes his teeth
Smokes a two dollar holler of cigarette for breakfast
A pack a day is like tax day for him
Paid by ten in the morning
Then the day is free and clear
Holds down his car as it bucks to life
Lurches away
Stops at Starbucks
Spends another hour’s dough
On two large black coffees
Picks up three buddies at the far edge
Of the Walmart parking lot
Drives two hours to arrive
At a dismal road to tame with asphalt
The boys dissolve and stick to the road
Buns of thick shoulders
Rise and fall in the oven of sun
Shoveling boils of oil and coal
Throwing
Their boots to stomp the steam
His car limps back to his driveway corral
At 9:45 in the summer evening
Devours another hour
Of Coors and McDonalds at his kitchen table
Prays very hard to God
Maybe it could rain tomorrow?
His girlfriend stands behind him
Rests her head on his shoulder
A dim light buzzing from the ceiling.
Categories:
laborers, career, character, conflict, courage,
Form: Free verse
The construction site –
The laborers toil and moil
Even in the rain!
Categories:
laborers, life, people, social, urban,
Form: Haiku