H e a r t   S o n s   &   H e a r t   D a u g h t e r s   of   A l l e n   G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m   H e a l t h   S p a :   R e p o r t   2 0 1 4 :   A r c h i v e s   E d i t i o n

 

 

DAVID COPE

 

 

River Rouge

after Charles Sheeler’s painting

 


 

Charles Sheeler, River Rouge Plant, 1932. Oil on canvas, 20 × 24 1/8 in. (50.8 × 61.3 cm).

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

 

Faces in Shadow

 

toxic clouds roil & pass above—

specks land

in the unseen housewife’s

fluttering washlines,

in the nostrils of the workers—

 

here, the machine itself, “functional

architecture” half-distorted barns,

half featureless rectangles—

the river, reflecting this

ochre & brown geometry,

the treeless land—

 

yet nowhere in this landscape do we see

the armies of workers marching

thru the doors at dawn,

chatter & coffee & taking in

the enveloping roar of the machines,

leviathan 

 

eating them alive, the

mad labor of the assembly line, the men

sweating, pulling, turning,

teasing out parts and forms

forcing out Ford’s cars

robotic in

dizzying line, ears

 

gone deaf in the noise,

bosses above

counting down every movement,

measuring time, 

measuring the men themselves to see what more

they could squeeze

from blood & bone.

 

 

Beyond the shadow

 

My dad grew up in the D,

his dad a mechanical engineer

redesigning high speed

 

pipe turns at Con Ed,

his childhood neighborhood

raising three to be trans-

 

national corporate officers—

by day a wild flight of kids

jumping off roofs, racing

 

thru back alleys—by night,

families cowering in basements

as Feds & the Purple Gang

 

shot it out a block away.

he’d dream back dancing

whole groups of friends

 

swinging at the Grande to

the Duke & Goodman,

& there was the

 

“Battle of the Overpass,”

where Ford’s goons battered

Walter Reuther until

 

his skull bled, the workers

sticking to the union

 til the day they’d die”—

 

& as a young married man

he’d lock my mother in

braving machine guns

 

at intersections to get

to his job working on

bell housings of Sherman tanks

 

during the race riots of

’43—Hitler still rampant,

first islands pacific at last.

 

 

The Scythe of Time

 

My grandma died at Eloise Asylum

now a phantom ruin—still standing,

 

empty halls, paint peeling,

a fading stone in the cemetery.

 

I was born at Women’s Hospital

& saw Ted Williams hit one into

 

the center field upper deck at

Briggs, Kaline hitless that day.

 

Later Janis Joplin played the Grande,

the Stones drove ‘em crazy at Olympia—

 

Motown rose with muscle cars

on the Reuther, the riots of ’67—then

 

burned out years & neighborhoods,

ruined homes & blocks, the Rouge itself

 

become a relic of another time—

ghost world of shades chewed up

 

in the scythe, Time itself become

a tale buried in the lost villages

 

of Anishnabek & voyageurs

filled with the light of the forest,

 

who fell in love with this

land of waters.

& I come back & dream my grandfather

 

toiling in his garden, my dad a boy

again, his dream of the D & those men

 

who sang these streets & turned

lathes & worked the lines, hopeful.

 

 

["River Rouge" first appeared in Big Scream 52, Big Hammer 16, and The Wayne Literary Review. Used by permission of the author. Originally published in NHS 2013, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/_special_edition_nhs_2013/.]