oh the joys of uncertainty and inevibility

this poem was accepted/published by Inevibility Press in July 1995. Another small magazine press - which is the lifeblood of poetry, really. be certain to check the archives, if ya wanna get to some of the other poems i've posted here ... any sort of comments are welcome (and appreciated - it's the only way i know if anyone has read any of this stuff).
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still no contract at the mill, and now the news that the entire containerboard side of the Weyco is for sale ... who knows if our mill will continue to operate much beyond the immediate future ... oh the joys of corporate America ruled by a whimsy called The Dow Jones ....




UNSHAVEN I TURN THE NIGHT

unshaven i turn the night on an uneven axis
work the dust of industry into garbage bins
that will be certainly empty by morning

the worker i relieve is old
walks with an angry limp
tells me he is god, fallen upon hard times

& god, having lost his national grant, works the swing shift
on a lathe that performs no real miracles
but he collects the shavings
& in the deepest darkness of night he melts them
in a pot as black as despair
molds them into figurines that gather upon a dusty shelf

he tells me when he has amazed a perfect army
(dormant angels, he calls them)
he will free himself from the chains of this slavery
& build himself a perfect paradise in the night skies
beyond the corrupting fingers of this thing called man,
this the worst of all his creations,
man that discovered it all too possible to create (to take) life

unshaven i turn the night into little pieces of dreams
that fly (between the broken castles of industrial giants)
as bats seeking open fields & survival