JIM TRAINER'S POEM OF THE WEEK, IN THE CITY-Jim Trainer's News & Public Affairs Program On KOOP Radio In 2024
BOXING DAY for Rob Kaniuk
today when I prayed
I blessed no one
it was hard getting down
hard getting back up
from my knees
I been working since 12 that’s
32 years every day a fight
some gigs were easy but they took your mind
others took your body and your mind
I took salt baths and wrote and
didn’t write or bathe at all and I drank
that perfect, crippling foil–alcohol
and swirled in the hopelessness and the
myriad of trial and damage that comes with that life
I washed dishes, mowed lawns, painted houses
it was insisted
I was lucky to do so
my father was an oil man and they
moved him from city to city
because of his attitude
my attitude is my father’s and I don’t feel lucky
or beaten though almost
on some days, weeks, months and seasons
on off days I turn off the phone
type these words for us:
me and my father and every man and woman
who’s survival is weaponized against him
whose health and wellbeing has to be negotiated
though honestly most days I don’t type at all
but lie there not sleeping
letting the bad humors of battle wash over me
get up when it’s time
to go back to work and I pray
though today when I prayed
I blessed no one.
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