And If You Wonder How I Could Have Such Heroes

I remember at Christmas
my brother would come home wealthy and drunk
staggering out of the oil patch
looking for love

The men who froze
clanged against the cold nights
were my heroes
They had money cars women
How they drove fast
and killed themselves

When you work in the oil patch
you think you’re giving something
You know the sweat off your ass
has set up the people
who condescend from their Cadillacs

You drink and act tough
maybe get drunk enough to fight
When the money is gone
you disappear like a trapper
into the wilderness of iron

:: Peter Christensen, in Going for Coffee (1981)

Keeping Fear Away

At the site the ribbons flutter
They are tell-tales of wind
of men
who have surveyed the valley

I am a jughound planting the geophones
to record the blast vibrations

Sometimes between shots we wait
Are bored like children

We blow up rocks and trees for fun
I toss half a stick of geogell
into the air Shoot it with a shotgun
Rip the morning air apart

We are near a field I watch
Doug blow the ass off a gopher
halfway down its hole
with the cap wire trailing behind

I watch a raven pick up the bread
wrapped around a blasting cap
Fly for a hundred feet
up into his sky And then
the electric touch and black feathers
floating down to the shouts
and yahoos on the ground

I help the powder monkey
shove geogell into the mountain
Make it vibrate under our feet
Sound of the blast comes back
comes back

I wonder at the power of the men
I work for
They will make me rough like their talk
I will laugh with their gestures
that say they are not afraid
of women sex manhood
anybody

:: Peter Christensen, in Going for Coffee (1981)