When the Big Man blows,

relive those glory days

rockin’ and rollin’ in the back seat of

a beat up old Buick,

an Asbury Park tune,

a hemi-head

double-barrel bass guitar,

wild and innocent

shufflin’ down E Street,

when Adam first raised a Caine

dancin’ in the moonlight Rosie

low tide summer,

and the tilt-a-wheel

caught us by the collar

and we hung on

and went around and around,

when the Promised Land was

clandestine alleyways,

heavy breath moist

air-fogged window

gasp of a woman child

back street September sixteen,

rockin’ back beat crashin’

fifty ton plates,

furious splooshing

ladles plunging into

liquid steel,

skinny silky skin

long-haired boy

trying to flee

the future,

the mill waiting

to turn velvet hands

to sand paper,

skin to leather,

the quick nervous

wrapping of limbs,

bumping of bellies,

then a house filled with silence

and forty years

of punching in and punching out,

of hot molten slag

like hell fire.

No Jersey Shore fantasy,

just the short ride

down Main Street

to the flats.

No sandy beach ocean,

just the Brandywine Creek.

No neon spinning carnival rides,

or stroll down summer boardwalks.

Just plod along under

smoke stack steeples,

clock in and out forever,

but never forget summers

of desperate fumbling

on back street back seats,

of alleyway heat,

of the Big Man blowin’ righteous

saxophone songs of

Sandy, and Rosie

and Crazy Davey,

while you sang a

song of yourself.