Sheldon Kozushko: 5 Poems
Sailor
A roof is like the deck of a boat,
Beyond the gutter we will fall into the abyss.
Roped to an anchor
Spreading out across the planks
like an octopus, or a squid
Sweating, cursing, breathing in the rain
Sometimes.
There is blood too,
On our hand, on our pants
On our cotton shirts,
We have knives,
We have guns.
Every ridge is a crest, and
Every shingle
The coarse salt of the ocean.
Mud
I do not want to put mud on the ceiling any longer!
It's on my shoes
and my shirt
and on my arms.
It's on the floor
it's on the wall
and it’s on the toilet.
This time I wore sunglasses
to keep my eyes from burning,
But the light keeps turning off.
I'm two feet on
second rung from the top
bending over so it knows I'm still here,
yes, I'm still putting mud on the ceiling,
but I just want to stop.
Black Gold
They say I can make 100 grand
Up north in the oil sands of Alberta,
I never heard'a shit like that
Growing up Newberg.
I can swing a chain . . .
Avoid the blow and stroke
Then wash away the grime
Of brown Macs placed in my pockets
By the man I give my body to.
What's one year for a life of freedom?
I'll pay in flesh to escape the trap,
Work and rent and hope to god
The checks don't bounce.
Hope to god my body doesn't end up
Back on the blue beds of UCLA
Beside my medical trays.
And hope to god that I can hold onto the last bits
Of a wage that dissipates as quick as hot breath
On a cold night.
What's one year for a life of freedom?
Hook Blades
At this time,
my life is felt most in the tip
of a hook blade,
half an eye
staring at my handiwork
making triangles
that I throw off the roof
through the smoke of cigarettes
and curses in Spanglish,
Tagalog chatter,
Bantering of balding men
in blue shirts
ripping from the hook blades
the half eyes staring back
as they lie in the gutter.
"ASH-fault"
a roofers blade is sharp,
i can almost count the days
by the number of cuts on my hand.
i can see the weeks on my skin
it's golden, Californian,
but I am not in California.
rising up to my dirty blue sleeves,
suddenly white,
unshaded
like my the rest of my body
melting slowly on the slanted tar
and asphalt.
in Canada
they say it like this—
"ASH-fault."
maybe because its dirty
like the black stuff under my nails
that never goes away.
Sheldon Kozushko is a Canadian/American writer and musician based in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles. After searching for, and finding long lost relatives in Belarus, his work draws strongly upon the themes of family, heritage, and the hardship of transcontinental movement. His poetry was most recently featured in Westwind's The Lost Journals. His work also explores the themes of blue collar work, day-to-day living, life in Los Angeles, class struggle, love, and riding motorcycles.