Once Upon a Blue Collared Man
by Cam M. Roberts
What have ye done? Man of spider webs and dusty hands.
Wrinkles of gravity on the amicable and cheery space—
Northwest of nostril seasons—Autumn’s graces—Old man’s
disgrace—One pending on the youth’s arrival from the belly
to the womb of the world’s intake—The breath of life in crates
of warm industrial pistons of motorized clout—The haze and sheerness—
Born into a system of innovation—Standards increase and expectations
of ease and free riding crescendo upward towards infinite growth—
Where has the simpleton gone? He stitched my knee, he patched my jeans,
he greased my tractor, and cleaned my pond of algae—Self-sufficient tides
of skill—The jack of all trades—Self-made million use man—Aires of nothing,
but himself—Inhaling tobacco’s smoke of the garden he grew himself.
Eating from the tilled and red dirt, the corn and tomatoes that all produced,
God, nature, and his hard work. You see? He pleases his own survival.
He builds not for the compliment of squirrely men, but for the shelter
from the wet and cold—He’s no animal, he’s sane and has foreseen a tidal wave.
Stupidity of complicated advancement: The Science of Living Beyond Our Means,
albeit Green—Afterbirth of the American Dream—Now solipsism and catastrophe.
The time for trivial pursuits now lay in a time of apocalypses in suits.
Where do you see him at a time like this? A dying breed of overall men.
He’s suffering for the nonexistent frontier’s sins. He has lost the war to it.
However, his style in the manner of battling—He’s nothing short of a—I forgot—
A genteel man? Fairness was his code of lifeblood. But wired man knows of
no such principle, only the defeat of its obstacle. Of course, the straw hat man
was ill-equipped, but he’s extinct now—An artifact from a time much calmer—
The stormy weather of circuit folk is now the throne of worldly greeds.
The gravestone marks his gander—The kindness of his pure and simple manner.
Now the maintenance required of its infrastructure is needed—Oh, dear.
The flannel shirt man is called—His lost voice finally heeded. Ironic scenarios,
most inconvenient. Too unfortunate. Told you so… so very long ago.
Ubi sunt 