Blue Collar Review

Spring 2009

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 $15.00 yearly, or $5.00 for a single issue.
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Poetry Samples from the Latest Issue

Ten Hour Layover: Greyhound Station
   -- Davenport, Iowa

Bound for a life of pool hall hyperbole,
an overweight kid talks too loud, all the time:
to the station master, to anyone who will listen.
The high hitch of his pants has given him acne,
and sitting next to a Brylcream Polonius,
they watch as the guy's cigarette
becomes symbol:

            Dean Moriarty!

During my wait, I see him get hired and fired
as help around the station.

Two teenage girls, popping gum,
rolls of flesh arguing tight shirts, ask me, "Mister,"
for a quarter, later offer Burger King coupons.
Like a speeding boyfriend who is wired up,
thin and pasty, they're down for a night
of urban stairwells, cheap wine.

My bus finally comes --
but they never take me far,
no matter where I'm going. Like the rest here,
I ride them because there's no place for me yet
in America. It hasn't been invented.
Call the coach "idling pumpkin,"
"mobile project housing:"
a ghetto for waifs, not-evers, anti-presidents
one more poor place nobody visits,
which is too bad,
because where else are things this real?

     David Craig

What, Exactly, Is My Level?
at the monthly meeting,
the plant controller,
talked a mish mash of numbers
using fancy accountant math
to validate the graphs
showing that despite
the fact that sales are up,
and more hydraulic cylinders
are being pushed
out the door
than ever before

profits are way down

"let me break it down
to your level"
this vaunted accountant said
"we have no money
to pass down to you"

they stood in a tight confederation
the general manager
the production manager
the plant controller
the quality engineer
the human resources syphoner
their arms crossed
eyes hooded
daring someone on our level
to raise a dissenting voice
ask an honest question

we sat in a loose, numb sprawl
the machinists
the welders
the CNC operators
the assemblers
the chrome shop technicians
everyone who's worked
ten hour days
six days a week
for months on end

and we say nothing we outnumber them
at least fifteen to one

yet they're the ones
who walk out the door
with smiles on their faces

      Karl Koweski

Surplus Citizen Awakes

This dream is getting increasingly
irritating!    Me
explaining what's gone wrong to some bemedaled militarist --

Bad enough an industrial society of production line
slavery and belching destruction where at least something
was produced but now a commodity driven
commercial nightmare where
EVERYTHING is a SCAM to SELL SELL
SELL and jobs, if you can get one, suck
the life out of you and give you
nothing in return. No sense
of accomplishment or pride or even an illusion
of ownership and getting one is getting
harder and harder demanding degrees and certifications
a glowing history and piss tests and maybe shots and
getting anywhere requires a car of your own
rife with expenses and fees and insurance since they
got rid of the trolleys and the trains and
taxis are expensive and the busses few and slow and
did I mention that Driving is a Privilege?

And don't get sick!
Don't even think of it -- if you are
working, you might lose money or even your
stupid job and if you're not (and even if you are) you
don't have insurance and can't afford medicine much less
the privilege of a doctor's brief attention as he/she rushes
from patient to patient making quota for some HMO
with a fancy logo and a stupid name.

And don't get old!
No one will hire you and you are no longer in the
Prime Market Demographic -- no longer
a desirable mark,
neither a buyer nor a seller and thus
irrelevant    surplus baggage
yesterday's old news.

Like I said, this dream is getting annoying
and anyway, I have to pee.
Time to get up and
look for a
job . . .

   Al Markowitz

Our Own Asses to the Fire Trump Morals Every Time
it was me and three Laotians
in the sensor dept.

the supervisor
had three small mirrors
rigged to the side
of his computer.

no, no you're
half-assing it,
he'd dart over
and yell in a mousy voice
at the slightest misstep
of perceived
lack of output.
somehow
he found out
i had a
college degree (he
had an a.a.
in agricultural sciences)

i no longer got the
mirror treatment
and he started
sitting next to me at lunch.

told me
the only thing
those people understand
is absolute authority
and fear
how a man
of my intelligence

what i saw
was any one of the Laotians
outclassed him as a human
ten to one (i wanted
to jack the ignorant fucker
straight in the teeth)

but i just nodded
and chewed silently.

they were paying me
thirteen per.

my father
was charging me
three-fifty a month
to sleep on a couch
in the basement.

student loan gestapo
had found me
again

&

the repo man
was hot
for my car.

      Justin Hyde

The Product of Colonialism

People are wondering
about Sonia Sotomayor
(the paper says so)
They want to know would she
if put on the Supreme Court
of the Unites States of Amnesia
make decisions (given the history
of racism
of which her ancestors were victims)
be unfair to old white men.

Would she ship some back to
Europe for illegal entry,
(I mean none of the Mayflower seedlings
had documentation)?
Would she separate children
from parents? Stuff every one
of the white ones she could catch
into cages with TB
for entertainment?

Wondering would she encourage
the invasions of places
of previous perpetual pale power for
this or that?
And worse, would she sanction
on the highest court in the land, (they
have to climb flag poles to get there and
sit on them for six months in hailstorms
of questions. A sort of primitive rite of passage)
against the vote, a Puerto Rican to be President
who we all know would practice cannibalism and
crown himself Emperor     and
retaliate maybe even demand statehood for Puerto Rico
or make herself Emperor?

Maybe it would be like
Jews in Palestine or capital punishment black
deadly justice
justice deadly

     Mary Franke

He Believes

He believes
   that the lone cowboy rides victorious
   and don't never need no help from nobody.

He believes
   any lie if it's big enough, if it's Texas sized,
   and comes with a beer and a racist joke.

He believes
   with all the violent love of his heart,
   and all the bloody rightness of his flag,
   and all the Free Market ka-ching! of his God,
   that we live in the bestest, most goodest
   country forever and ever amen.

He believes
   that the sky is green, that the sun riseth
   like a golden fist out of the Bible and setteth
   like a bomb on those who ain't believers.

He believes
      on his knees.

He starts to cough -- hack, hack, rattle and bark!
Out comes Haymarket, Ludlow, the Rosenbergs,
Sacco and Vanzetti. Out come legions of cops
beating the Weeping Christ of the People down
across hundreds of cities and years. Out
comes everything he didn't know he'd forgotten.

   He believes: He believes: He believes --

he pukes like Linda Blair in The Exorcist!
The lies just won't stay down.

A doctor asks him to open his mouth wide --
inside is a smiling anchorman with perfect hair
reading a script prepared by the government.

That's going to require surgery.

   Robert Edwards

Art and the Question of Revolution
"Do you think poetry will induce the revolution or is poetry the revolution?
   -- An audience member to Amiri Baraka

Poetry is not the revolution
The revolution is the revolution
Cuba is the revolution
Sandino is the revolution
Ramona is the revolution
Mothers circling the plaza
Children throwing stones
youth koitoi-ing through Soweto
They are the revolution
The revolution is chanting
between barricades
outside the WTO
The revolution is on strike
at the maquilas
on strike
in South Korea
is liberating Mindinao
The revolution is organizing
workers organizing
women organizing
queers organizing
poor folk
black folk
brown folk
yellow folk
red folk
white folk
The revolution is poetry
in the streets

   Felicia R. Martinez

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