In the middle of another
eight hour shift.

The factory roars
as it always has,
as it always does.

Yet, there are poems
to be written,
cigarettes to be smoked,
and other thoughts,
perhaps thoughts of a
rosebush, planted in a soldier’s
helmet, or maybe daydreams
of
a black-cherry
sundae
to be dreamed.

So, the poet will think,
will smoke,
will dream,
will write.

What will they do?

The factory will roar
as it always has,
as it always does.

The memory
of a whole house
locked inside a single
room floods the mind.

This rooming-house;
a chopped-up duplex.

The poet lived
in the kitchen.

The ashtray overflowed;
the carpet was grey,
dusty with spilled ash,
the evening’s embers
gone cold.

The lock on the apartment
door;
it can barely hold back
a strong breeze.

The poet feels
safe enough.

When the landlady
comes for the rent,
he answers the door
in his underpants.

She is so persistent
in her quest for payment
that she comes by at ungodly
hours.

These are the times of day
that a writer, a poet
might best be
left to sleeping,
but the landlady fails
to realize this truth,
so underpants it is.

The room has been remodeled,
the poet has moved out,
gotten married,
is raising a family,
but he is still a poet.

Smoking a cigarette,
a welcomed pause
in the midst of
an eight hour shift.

The factory roars
as it always has,
as it always does.

The poet’s thoughts
will wander
to witches and how
the weight of these women,
dancing ******* in the middle
of a moonlit forest,
might have their weight
somehow correspond
with that of a duck.

And, then suddenly,
as if awakened from
a trance,
the poet will realize that
none of this ****
really matters anyway;
and that nobody ever
really gives a ****,
except the witches
and the ducks.

The factory roars
as it always has,
as it always does.

The poet remains a poet.

Because.


*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018