New Boot Blues Poem by Michael Walkerjohn

Bare footin’ long this river’s edge
mud gushin’ up ‘tween’ my toes
pole, line, and hooks held in my hands
headin’ once again onto that ‘old fishin’ hole…
got to laugh about this; being for this moment
as it is all up in my head, instead
I stand here on the top of my world
now the tenth floor deck of a scheduled forty-four
upon the chaos of iron, concrete, and men at work clamour
and I gots me some terrible New Boot Blue’…
Now these ‘Diehards’, they ain’t no custom fit
but the price is right if you snooze and sit
for those of US who build this stuff; the reality is
search long and hard and spend two hundred bucks
on that ‘better pair’ of working men’s boots!
Used to be you could count on these, but that
was many decades ago; I know for I’ve
spent forty years or more
singing those New Boot Blue’…
Most ‘boys’ gots knowledge
of the new boot challenge
and ‘par’ up, fore the last pair are too abused
‘stuff em’ with damp paper, that Sunday’s tool
and mink oil the outside leather smooth
but now-a-daze its from the inside out
that those ‘dogs’ so rudely abuse
the ankles, the heels, the toes and soles
making holes in what was muscular and whole…
Choosing good boots; it is thought filled work
and by a miracle upon once in that ‘Blue Moon’
a ‘pair’ is wed to the soles in stead
but this time I gots them horrible New Boot Blue’…
My soles insist, both right and left
that I have once again been ‘played a fool’
for buying what is ‘in common sense’
these ‘foreign made dogs’ are short, the worst of tools
before they are sold and used…
What’s in the design that’s being denied
in the quality of hide and truth of cut and sew?
Where in this mix is the glue that’s trick
and the determined ‘soles’ to last year through?
I’ve been around this construction show
been near and I’ve been far
worked both to the top of the world
and to the depths of underground
I’ve worked the dirt, the street, highway and road
been a tunneling, dam building, pipe lining fool
worked commercial, industrial, and that military show
worked bridges, tilt-ups, hospitals and high-end res
all around this world and so
I can say that I have seen it come and go
and believe you me; I do know all about
these horrible New Boot Blue’
“What a day, what a day, what at day”
and whatever on this earth is there to do
about these horrible New Boot Blue’?
If you have a clue, holler out loud at me!