Working People's Poetry Competition
WINNER 2009

Black Friday
A Wal-Mart worker, Jdimytai "Jimbo" Damour, was killed today when "out of control"
shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 am sale.
            --Yahoo News, Friday November 28, 2008

That yellow smiley face can kill.
It gleefully crushes puny humans
as it bounces around the store,
rolling back prices -- and mortals.

Who could predict their Reaper
manifesting itself as a Starbucks-fueled,
Egg McMuffin-crammed mob
of early bird shoppers?

When Damour is welcomed
at the Pearly gates of Heaven,
will St. Peter wear the uniform
of a Wal-Mart greeter?

Will Jimbo's family, every
Christmas mourning, don
their finest Friday blacks --
like Grandma's family in that reindeer song?

And what of his obituary, and his
official Cause of Death?
"Killed by the soiled Nikes of
unchecked consumer greed?"

At the funeral, Sam Walton himself
lays a wreath of dollar bills
on Damour's grave, and a name tag
in the shape of a Purple Heart.
    Luke Salazar


Runners Up

The Canaries Go On Living

when the coal mines die out.
They take to the charcoal sky
like honeybees to the stamen
while blast furnaces once stoked
and molten hot are no longer refilled.
Their centers have gone cold, dimmed
from bright blinding white
to canary yellow,
orange down to red,
and finally an ironic coal black.
Dust settles on the pipes and floors,
even fills the molds that once flowed
with man-made lava.
Things have slowed
down, ground to a stop
with the pop of arthritic
knuckles and spines bent
into unanswerable question marks.
What dots the landscape at night
are no longer the fire-lights of industry,
the flames of desire, but now advertising
of strip malls, sign posts from
avarice to redundancy,
neon tubes already cool to the touch.

   Andrew Rihn


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