Blue Collar Review; Journal or Progressive Working Class Literature
Winter 2023-24
The Blue Collar Review is a quarterly journal of poetry and prose published by Partisan Press. Our mission is to expand
and promote a progressive working class vision of culture that inspires us and that moves us forward
as a class. The work presented is only a sampling from the magazine. Subscriptions are $20.00 yearly, or $7.00 for a single issue. Subscribe using the on-line link or send checks to Partisan Press P.O. 11417 Norfolk, VA 23517.
e-mail at red-ink@earthlink.net
home, wears work on his breath. She dodges
broken glances with dinner and a peck.
Wild blackberry slices
each hand that reads
clocks stuffed with musty school switch
scars.
Noon fire whistle blares. Water tower
the only one who sees beyond its limits.
From morning till covers crease
all our clothes stink
of greased salt.
The potato chip factory wages time on us.
Rene Mullen
Demo to Disco
My job was to remove the tank.
It was two stories tall
ten thousand gallons
made of thick poly plastic
used to store waste water.
I went in on a rainy Sunday in winter
when the plant was a ghost town.
Just me, with a gantry crane, a forklift,
some logging chains, a Sawzall, and a
bunch of blades.
The accident was my fault.
I rigged it wrong.
I misunderstood the forces at play.
I was thrown from the building.
About ten yards, into a puddle in the
fuel terminal.
It hurt getting up
it's been hurting ever since.
I have a permanent dent from
that swat.
I removed the tank.
Now people use that space for
bands and dancing and weddings.
Now I need to move the overhead crane
to rig the disco ball
Lyle Estill
Shit Just Got Real Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never did and never will." -- Frederick Douglas
Forced to work, we workers see good money,
green envy, cruelty (a capitalist knows).
Hoarded wealth ill-distributed, is guillotine funny.
Class dismissed, a too skinny employer goes
to show off Jimmy Choo's new perfume
on Sunset Strip, a Gaultier faux fir, Hilfiger's t-shirt
later in vintage Malibu, so cool -- Zoom.
Blush for shame? Crimson Dior couldn't hurt,
saves face, a status rebirth on broke Earth.
Whip crackers, busters, a gross politics inherited,
all illegitimate, boss -- my, our true worth:
the People. So, how are pelf dreams merited?
Greed. No profit sharing, or great Union to love.
Striking, USA workers come to shove.
Dana Stamps, II
Somebody Let Dave Down, and My Bet's on Sam
I hadn't seen him in two years and it was a shock to see him like
this, doing his grocery shopping in a motorized scooter cart.
Before I could ask he said, "How are you doin', young man?"
I didn't have much to say before turning the question back to him
and immediately feeling overwhelmed.
He'd been with his wife almost as long as interracial marriages
had been legalized and had just had to put her in a nursing home,
unable to care for her by himself any longer.
As soon as he'd done that, his broken heart failed
and a man who still bore a startling resemblance to a,
in his prime, Woody Strode disintegrated.
After losing his wife to dementia and his
own health, last month, his landlord delivered the dagger.
"I need $1,500 a month, Dave. You have to go."
They'd lived there eighteen years, never missed a
rent payment and he'd taken care of building maintenance.
Didn't matter though.
A commuter suburb of Boston?
Whatever the market will bear, Baby.
What do you guys expect landlords to do?
Not this.
"Have you got a place to stay?"
"Yeah, I'm staying with a friend.
And I'm a vet. I'll find something somewhere.
But I lost most of my stuff.
Everything reminded me of Kathy, and
I wouldn't have been able to take it with me anyway.
At 74 I thought life was set. Then I lost it all."
Nothing you can say at such a moment actually helps.
But you can say it in the streets and at the ballot box:
What the hell kind of society allows
physically challenged septuagenarian vets
who've been model tenants for almost two decades
to lose their apartments just so
heartless vampire ghouls
can make even more money?
Andrew Slipp
Roadside Sign
At the corner near the VA,
maybe there is one minute of red
left before the light turns green.
Though my cup is out with
the roadside sign just below it,
I don't really want your money
or your pity. I'd rather be a reminder
of how people become
government-issued garbage, of how
easily they are forgotten, just like the wars
they won or lost, the ones no one
recalls in detail, or who was the victor,
or how it started or stopped.
If it ever did.
I want to stand in, stand out, for what
cannot be remembered because it was
never known. This cardboard cue-card
outlines what you never learned but
still could if you cared to. Read the text
between these few . . . .
If someone served, it was because
someone else got served. If a country
was saved, who was it saved from or for?
And who wrote the schoolbooks you
were expected to study but never did?
Maybe you can read this sign instead:
it's only three lines
and there's no exam..
Joel Savishinsky
Colossus of Hypocrisy for Joe Biden and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, American U.N. Ambassador
Naked
before the world
blood-soaked and drenched
in hypocrisy
stands the empire
Uncle Yosemite Sam
guns and bombs blazing
spewing threats and ultimatums
stubbornly complicit in
wars in war crimes --
crimes against the world
in Genocide
His minstrel puppet at the U.N.
refusing even to condemn
a blatant massacre of starving innocents
waiting for food.
A loud obstacle to peace
anywhere
everywhere
A strangling noose
on any who refuse to bow down
or be controlled
on life itself..
Al Markowitz
Why We Resist
because the rubble that were houses
can be removed, but the shadows they cast can not.
because fathers lay still
beneath their children's blood, while lined
against walls and shot.
because ambulances were and still are, denied
from carrying their loads.
because Firyal is left
alone with her six children, the youngest
six months.
because their bodies are still
and here.
because invasions have become
common occurrences.
because martyrdom has been given to us,
kneaded into our bread.
because people are more
than tracks left by tanks.
because we breathe,
inhaling the destruction
you left.
because so many others did not.
Tariq Jawhar
Ripping Out the Stitches
Read the black narrative
of history.
We are wild things
not a valley of suicides.
We are not
death's house divided.
Be done with it, rolling guilt
down the splintered
    white
geography
of regret's broken bone,
the detached retinas
of our good intentions
staring furiously
into the back alleys of our hearts.
Swim beyond the breakers,
beyond the ceaseless tide's indifference.
Tread the deep water, arms
raised above your head
your heart shaking two fists
clutching angry stones
P.B. Bremer
Rise
Every empire eventually fails
Every emperor wears no clothes
Close your eyes
Even the blind can see
The screams of children in your ears
The pleas for mercy from the emperor's torturers
Anger like vomit rising in your throat spewing filth and truth hard as any steel
Rise like a shackled giant breaking all the chains
The real power disused on the floor
Trod upon over and over
Ignored
Till one day we rise as one wearing the power we picked up together
From the floor.
Stewart Acuff
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