ballad of the Laborer 
--
five, i was debt free
but greenway is the lawnmower child
mowing the blades they're souls
they tip the poet in sympathy checks
Paster Paul was at the Brewery
i had forgotten he breathes just like the 
groundskeeper
he once stopped Seattle
and paid the rent to my little habitat
in Genesis park
made sleep my therapist
he was cheap and paid to keep me up
til it was time to clock in the twenty stories
or more...
i tied nooses between my harness
swung before the neckties and computer-minded women
for recreation i would drop spitlets of buddah
all pause to levitate just above the grime of tryon
converting broken leaves
planted for beutification
they were city trees with no potentials
they cursed towering frames that howled through the pollution
after my sheets ached below me just north of 
everything 
that abided city street lights
abided God in His callused palms
this was before the Rape had entered dreams
and my classrooms

i would purchase lunch with my former laborers
their begged minimum to my obtained untaxed wages
i always noticed whom was the minority
Gary was my age with a kid.
i brought him home once, for dinner
i always noticed the dirt on his kmart bought boots was thicker
in college i never wonder what his kid got at 2
Gary's never gonna grace a classroom again
i always wonder if it all has to do with color tones
i owe it to him to write in complete
sentanc es
and to major in minors
i didn't tell Paul the night i was arrested
ashamed, and scared my brother would shoot at any moment...
the lawn man was a cover up
they had me change into orange before them
cops had never been such cops
i had never known shame
i felt as Gary must have between the egg-shell white
rooms we were offering for about an hour
i remember he had taken his work boots off at the door
i hadn't
i was never good to Paul's wife