An Honest Day’s Work
on a roof in Brooklyn
the wind is trying to blast us over the edge
breaking us on ice covered rocks and debris
below. I am working with a drunk German
chewing on garlic gloves
to disguise the smell of stale booze
and a kid missing 3 fingers, all of us
trying to put a wrought iron fence around the perimeter
“first we godda break off the ice”
and the trick is to smash it
with hammers or our boots
and try not to get blown
off the building by this gusting arctic wind:
suddenly the wind catches me
and the ice sends me dancing backwards
for a moment I feel my center of gravity shift
and I am about to fall gracefully over the edge
the kid grabs my arm
wrenches me back
says “you stupid bastard!
“I toldja to be careful”
it is January in New York
and the air is 20 below zero
and my hands and face
are burning cold agony
all of this for 10 dollars
an hour. This is what I came
to America for. The cold,
10 dollars an hour, and a kid
missing three fingers
holding my life in his gimp hands
“how d’you lose your fingers?”
“lost one doing a job like this” he smiles
“crushed it beneath a lump hammer.
“Lost the other two letting off an m-80”
and I think shit, O’Neill
your fancy words are no use here:
all of the crazy things you have pulled
and the closest you have ever come to dying
has happened today - while trying to do
an honest day’s work
I think
there is a lesson in there
somewhere
One of Tony’s favourite youtube videos: JOHN SINCLAIR AND THE WHITE PANTHER PARTY
Stand-out lyric: “You won’t have a free world, you won’t have a free culture, until people can fuck wherever they want to and whoever they want to.”
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