Labor Day 2014 © (revised August 30th, 2018)

Courtesy of one or more tradesmen,
the first Monday
in September set aside
especially honoring employees

dedication, gratification, honing
job duties till
second nature inculcation...
evidenced by being

able, eager, ready
and willing to acquire money
maybe marry a groom or bride,
climb corporate ladder, or

become an artisan,
entrepreneur, laborer, technician
(to side step ascending
stair weigh heavily

rung out, drafted
like an oxen plow,
commandeered and chide
did by management as insubordinate

nonetheless ironically feted
receiving glazier plaques
acknowledging career employee
deserved retirement, whence joining

kiln fields once died)
from over exertion, yet nonetheless
sweat of brow efforts praise,
aye worthily corroborated, espied
searching me noggin

and Google, sans a brief history
re: aforesaid day,
where barbecues fried
dispersed aromas recognizing efforts

of workers with
quality control as guide
grievances against rod need
danger field challenged

sense and sensibility and/or
against excessive pride and prejudice
stalwart did not hide
the shenanigans took place inside

warranted unprintable colorful prose
smoky boardrooms linkedin
tandem fouled nose
just common every

day highs and lows
trading Jane's and/or Joe’s
who weathered extreme temperatures,
whereby bodies froze,

but thanks to those,
who battled elements
at large and snatched a doze
birth of brute efforts eventually

earned reserved renowned
borne a couple shy
of the nineteenth century,
whence the sound

of industrial silence replaced
with parades, where
hoof beats did Ezra pound
the burgeoning, and

bustling city streets
echoed along the hardened ground
where fealty to country soldered
with faith, federation union freedom,

and job security
did thence abound
which holiday under
went transformations

as bustle and hustle
paved the land of milk and honey –
from straining of muscle
whereby life, liberty and pursuit

of happiness less
of a physical tussle
set (via masons), the
cornerstone to an invisible

complex edifice originally
from New York
those forgotten builders,
farmers, machinists, unskilled labor

et cetera whose dis shoveled
spades laid groundwork
wrought by destruction
from the Civil War

bean counters largesse and pork
loosed from the bottle
in Antebellum South,
when off flew the cork

freeing a genie,
which became supreme
in the court
such as (the no longer
remembered) Robert Bork!