On watching Butterflies Queen dub

On watching Butterflies

Bold queen,
why so shy?
On a lily light,
To let me spy
Red and orange, 
Wraped in gold
Still your wings,
Let me behold
Those smooth leaves.
Open wide
Little queen,
Why should you hide?

Royal blooded
How you flit
Calm your heart
Come and sit
Ill only look
I have no net
Little queen, why not rest?

Revision Dub for Summer

Revision Dub  for Summer

summer

collects in the gutters
gets tangled in fur of wild cats
drops on the backs of lady bugs slides
off her perfect spotted smoothness
she unhinges her wings for me

summer
is honey-suckle thick
an ovulation of magnolia
the earth is SO good

I’m looking for the transfer

On Watching Butterflies

Be still

Stretch your wings

let me mind you there

why so shy

What particular tools nature employs

What color and light

What exact dimensions

 

Little butterfly

Built for repose

Let me pay you some attention
Be still

Let me look

me and pa-bitch

On weekends, the Harris County holding tank is pretty-much standing room only. It varies of course, depending on the population count, but it’s usually packed. The holding tank is where they take you when you first get to jail to get booked, fingerprinted, and all the rest. It’s where you wait to be moved back into general population.

  One guy in the tank named Pavitch kept demanding to see a lawyer or a judge, or be let out. The cops started calling him Pabitch because he kept pushing the button by the little speaker, asking when he could expect to see the judge. I could tell by the conversation that he had been there for longer than the law allowed. The bosses are not supposed to keep you in holding more than 42 hours, because conditions are so crowded and dirty, but it is not uncommon to be there much longer. Cons basically sleep on top of each other, on a dirty cold concrete floor, so after a few days’ guys tend to get irate. They start asking to see a lawyer and all the rest. But the cops just blow them off and move them back to population whenever they get ready.  After a few days cons start taking it out on each other, fighting and bitching, like when you put dogs in cage and bang on the cage.

For whatever, reason Pavitch (unlike a dog) figured he’d try and buck the system, and was furious about being in such shitty conditions for so long. Perhaps he was expecting better treatment in the U.S.A. He kept screaming that he had papers and was a legal citizen and needed to go to population, and see his lawyer, or be let out. I’d heard of guys without papers, mostly migrant workers, hung up in the tank for weeks. They don’t ever see a lawyer unless the family can raise the money to buy one.

So the bosses started calling him “Pa-Bitch”. He kept ringing the buzzer demanding he see a lawyer or go back to population or whatever, and they kept mocking him and telling him to shut the fuck up. This went on and on and the other cons were getting tired of hearing him complain about it. I took up for him and told them that they would be doing the same thing if they were smart. I spoke loud so I thought the bosses would hear:

“You dumb fuckers, I bet if we all started raising shit we’d be back in population by now laying in our warm bunks, instead of this shit hole, why don’t you get off his ass and let’s join him. We should all demand to see a judge within 72 hours, be booked in, and be taken to population. If we all constantly complained about it maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Some of the guys were making eye contact with me and shaking their head. I guess the bosses figured they’d better take care of it before it got out of hand. So one opened the door with a clank:

“Pa-Bitch come on, you too Adam, you’re going to population, you’ll see the judge on Monday, promise, just calm down before the AACP shows up”.

Before cons go back to population they have to shower, get de-loused and dress out in county orange. Usually they take cons back in groups, but Pavitch and I were the only ones to go back. Once you got back in the little shower room they make you get naked to spray you with bug dope. It sends a chill down your spine because they keep it real cold. Usually after you get sprayed they turn on the steaming hot showers so it’s not too bad.

So we went through the motions; undressed and stood on the cold tile floor to wait for the boss to come in with the tank of bug dope. We just stood there naked under the blowing cold air-condition, for what seemed like an hour. We were both shivering when the boss came in. To my surprise and horror it was a lady cop, which I’d never seen before and I thought against the law. I was shivering and shaking and I put my hands over my dick. She smirked;

“Come on now boys, don’t be shy, we have to make sure we get all the crabs off too”.

She went over to Pavitch and started running a gloved hand through his hair.

“Look at all these nasty lice, filthy fucker, you guys don’t know how to bath I guess where you come from”.

She started spraying the bug dope all in his hair and face. He close his eyes and put his hands over his mouth, she moved the wand to his dick

“You nasty little bastard, let’s make sure to get all the crabs off that little dick of yours.”

She walked over to me and slapped my face.

“Big man huh, you gonna’ start a big revolution huh”

She sprayed me in the face.

“Now get in the shower and wash this shit off before it gives you cancer.”

We stepped in the shower but the hot water would not come on, only the cold. We hesitated and tried to turn the hot knob

“Come on you little bitches, wash it off before it burns your skin”

I knew that the longer you leave the bug dope on you, it started to tingle, then burn. So I stepped into the cold water. It was freezing cold. Pavitch and I shivered under its assault. The boss lady threw towels on the floor and told us to dry and dress, and that we would see a lawyer on Monday.

In population guys asked us about what happened. We told them they took us back early because we were making noise. I didn’t want to tell them I got punked out by that bitch boss lady, then guys would try and punk me. I just told them we did what we needed to do to get moved back to population. I remembered seeing those pictures of those dudes in that prison, those dudes from the war. I guess we should thank God we live in the U.S.A.

Poem

Kids got ideas for light, that’s good

But I figure Charon

Don’t take that currency

 

I got ideas too

But I also got coin

 

For the passage among the shades

And forms of shades

On that stinking far shore

Lamb of Moloch (Third Dub)

Lamb of Moloch (Third Dub)

It had been raining for five days but the work went on, continually. Day and night. Two shifts 12 hours each. It was called a “shut down”. That’s when a big petroleum processing plant shuts down completely for maintenance and repair. Some years ago the plant had burned. It had sat inoperative for over a year. The longer the plant is off- line the more money is lost. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. So the bosses push to get it done. Everybody works 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.

A petroleum plant is a mass of gauges, pipes, heaters, coolers, valves, and dials. They are arranged into distinct knots of metal twisting stories high, called stacks. Each stack performs a different task in the refining process. They are festooned in flood lights. The stacks are linked by pipes and tubes. Scaffolding surrounds the towers during a repair. The scaffolding is the only way for workers to climb into the mess. It formed an outer shell around a core of tangled pipes, like a skeleton around guts.

In the rain the stacks were surrounded by giant sheets of plastic, hung from wires and tied off to the scaffolding. The wind was so high the rain still blew in. The sheets caught the wind like sails, and ripped, blowing in moisture. They popped and whistled. Everything in the stack was dripping wet. Guys had to climb up the “racks” or scaffolding--into the great tangle of pipes to do the work. In the rain and dark this was a terrible work. They were often nearly soaked before they even got to the place in the pipes they had to work. Lights shined harsh florescent light from the ground or scaffold into the metal entrails, but in the middle it didn’t help. Inside the stack small lights were hung at various points, but it was still too dark. Shadows hid everything because everything was a tangle of pipe. It was squirming through the entrails of a robot monster. Shadows and harsh florescent orange light bathed everything. Some guy shad a light on their hard hat, but it just made the shadows thicker.

The guys wore harnesses and lanyards. They hooked their lanyards to the racks and climbed up. They called it “tying off”. But it was hard maneuvering through the tangle, because the lines tended to get hooked on gauges and pipes. One could get tied up very easily. And dragging a lanyard behind you, unhooking and hooking it to the rack as you went, was slow going at any rate. So guys often “flew” up. They climbed up and into the rack without tying off because it was quicker and easier. There were safety guys who were supposed to watch everything, but they often looked the other way when guys flew because the job had to get done for anyone—including them—to get paid, and time was money.

Most of the guys that worked on shut downs, especially the hard ones were x-cons. The nastier the work, and the longer the hours, the more ex-cons were on the job, this was an objective rule. This job was especially nasty. It consisted largely of removing smut and ash from the pipes. The refinery had burned a few years back. It had gotten so hot that the metal itself burnt. The pipes that were still usable had to be cleaned. To do this, the workers used a chemical they called “snake piss”, . It was a type of industrial solvent that melted the goo off the pipes, but also melted the thick rubber gloves guys wore to protect themselves from it. It burned like hell once it got on your hands. Each guy carried a bottle of a chemical that neutralized the burn. The foremen  and bosses called it MK, which stood Bennotol Karitine. The bosses knew that rats exposed to the vapors tended to develop cancer. When the factory had been a closed shop, the union had tired to force the bosses to disclose this to the workers, and make it to where they could only work with it 3 hours out of an 8 hour shift. Now, there were no unions workers left at teh plant.

 

Most of the workers had shaved heads and tattoos. The tattoos that made it obvious where they had been, and who they cliqued with, to anyone with an eye to see. It was absolutely the best job most ex-cons could get. It paid 18 an hour for an apprentice, plus time and a half. When they all showed up at starting time they were loaded into a bus at the gate and the buss drove back to the stacks. They called the buss the “Grey Bird”, same as they do in prison. They also cliqued up about the same as they would in prison, mostly along racial lines. There was some mixing, but not too much, and always with an eye to who was the dominant man in the relationship. Guys always jostled for position in the little hierarchies that were constantly being erected and challenged. The worst thing to be called was a bitch, or a fag. Once a guy started calling you gay, you knew you were being challenged.

As in prison one was either a shark or a fish. Also, as in prison there was a constant threat of violence. Fights often broke out but were quickly stopped. Confrontation was usually over petty grievances, and tended to be settled just as quick.

Adam considered it all slave mentality. He didn’t much talk to any of the guys. He kept to him-self. He had a plan. The plan was to make enough money to pay for a few semesters of school and quit as soon as he could. Most of the guys left him alone. He seemed to them not very sociable, or scared, or both. He was no threat and stayed out of the little rivalries so he was not given much mind one way or the other. When he did talk to the other workers he bitched about working conditions. Sometimes they seemed responsive, sometimes they just replied that they were glad to have a job, and to not let the foreman hear them talking that uppity shit.

the crew leader got word that Adam should be fired pretty soon. He kept sending him to get MK because it was one of the nastiest jobs, and the most dangerous because it involved a lot of climbing up and down the stacks, and handling the toxic solvent. There was a large tank of the stuff on the ground near the stack. Adam would have to climb down with a five gallon bucket, fill it up by siphoning the BK from the tank, and tie the bucket to a line that was brought up to the top. If the bucket got hung up it was his job to un-lodge it.

At the bottom a guy was standing watching Adam climb down. He yelled up.

“Why you let him do you like that AD?. Tell him to send someone else”.

Adam took off his helmet and wiped his fore head on his sleeve.

“Fuck em, I’m gonna quit at the end of the week anyhow, I made enough to go back to school. This job is easy because every time I come down I rest. They don’t say much if I take my time.”

“AD listen, it’s all about respect you got to let guys know they can’t fuck with you like that. You shouldn’t have to come down every time. Its considered bitch work, you should be panting by now. You’re a painter by trade ant you.”?

“Respect!?” Adam looked at him with amusement. “I get paid the same weather I’m hauling piss or painting. I don’t care what that chicken shit crew leader thinks of me. He gets paid as much as we do, they choose another one each night. They do that to make some guys think they are better than the rest. But truth is they ant no better than dog shit, just like the rest of us is treated like dog shit. l If you guys were smarter you’d demand to lay out while its rain. Nobody should have to work in the damn pouring rain, but instead your too busy knocking dicks like you was in jail. Ya’ll should get it together and stop givein each other such a hard time. You should learn how to give the bosses a hard time instead”.

“I’m gonna be a boss sometime soon. That’s why you gotta get the good jobs not the shit jobs. It shows you can move up, take on more responsibility. One day i'll be management”.

Adam laughed. “It’s all the same. All jobs are the same out here if you are working in the stacks. You get paid the same and the conditions are the same and the hours are the same and the risks are the same. IF you’re not sitting your fat ass in the office then you’re out here with the rest of us dogs, and if you’re out here it’s all the same. I can promise you that you won’t be sitting in an office any time soon.”

Adam tied off the bucket and started back up the stack. Half way up he got tangled up in his line. He could barely move enough to un-hook him-self. It was hard to see. The easiest thing to do was just un-hook, free himself from the tangle of lanyard, and tie off again. It was hard to move but much easier not being tied up to a scaffold. He went to unhook himself. Just as he did his foot slipped. There was a large open spot just behind him. He fell into the hole backwards. His hard hat came off as he fell and he hit his head on a pipe. The lanyard lines trailed up as he fell bumping against the pipes, like impotent wings.

The guy below watched blankly as he fell, with eyes much like those of cattle.

Adam’s broken body stretched across a gauge near the bottom of the stack, head dripping blood. The blood fell on the pipes, writhed down the steel entrails, and dripped slowly down and puddle on the concrete.

The lights smoked as the rain pelted them. The blood was absorbed into the concrete. The only sound was that of the rain hitting the guts of the machine, that breathed a sigh of pleasure in the rain.