TAROT READERS


My father spoke coarse words to those whose lives dimmed
As father spoke to them. He read to them in Bessemer light
From pamphlets; next to the rollpress, The Masses; at lunch,
The New Masses; after work, the Daily; and sometimes read
Them letters sent from home. They could not read paycheck
Stubs; they could not decipher danger signs around the work
So they listened closely only to workplace sounds, ignored
My father's chant of crimes against the commonest among
Them; the wretched scream of metal upon metal they heard,
Their wounded suppressed the screams of pain for paycheck;
Among furnaces, they licked their wounds and in steel beams
The fine print of their contract souls encased. O, Read to me,
I often said; but after work I went to bed; the table set for play.

I studied father's words upside down; at his knee as he spoke
I learned the rhythm of his doctrine, the bible of escape.
The hit-me, split, and double-up, the prayers for better cards.
Afterward it was his thirst that would remain. O, Read to me.
Creviced and mortared into place, familiar elbows at the bar;
Their seats lodged in old concrete and brick; in their lungs
And on their lips only the iron-dust and only the smokestack
Until they are called in their tongue by the foreman to work:
"Someone must serve, Nem? Through service we should rise;
As it is written, 'by the sweat of brow." This you should read."
They put away the cards, the bent-up deck of workers' destiny.

Pitiless steel red as paprikas hot as summer
Even at evening's Venus risen and at moonset
The long slab must be burnished to perfection,
The soul's imperfections burned with distinction.
Like the moth we are drawn to its firelight
And like the moth we die to be near that heat.
It pays the bills; it saves up cash; it antes up a dime.
We shall not die. So, deal the cards. We live forever
with our crimes. No god would take such covered filth
not take the one who owes so much. He deals
from off the bottom of the deck. So we must work.

So, Blacky hammered out his rote;
He read to them from Marx;
He dealt the cards at night;
It was a revolution by the dime;
He lost and won with each new ace;
The smile vanished from his face;
He dealt the cards each as if it were
his last; sought flaws and signals, simple
cracks in skill or poker stolid face of friends
who paid his bills; Sometimes he faults
the steel for its splintering: Is not man,
but nature of the ore to shatter thus.
Imperfect souls must drink and curse.
They gamble, waste their lives; they work.
Man drunk and man whoring is man perfect.
"What say your pamphlets to such heresies?"

The long steel that must be perfect runs daylong
From furnace to press, from ugly ore to galvanize.
Its flowers shine so prettily; it grows corrugated thin
as paycheck or winnings from the night before.

His daughters dreamed hard boys in fields
Among green plants growing tall and sweet.
The furnace for such boys is their ambition.
The royal flush, the perfect hand they seek.
Goddamn him who reads to make life seem
some challenge to be overcome; life's no more
than urine break, the cock and pair that sit so
helpless in your hand. Steam comes out between
the legs, ignites, in untrained stream it dissipates.
Strongmen will never die but live forever in a dream--
the poorest dream of wealth.

John Horváth Jr.

If you've any comments on his poem, John Horváth would be pleased to hear from you.
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