Alex 2 breathes, stacks and unstacks papers, distantly
Alex 1, front cubicle, coughs, clicks his mouse
Eddie pulls out his drawer, pushes it back in, clicks his mouse
Alex 2, yes two Alex's, saunters up to the coffee machine
Alex 1, head down, clacking his keyboard
Mouse clicks, keyboard clicks, electricity
Monitors glow, fluorescents never flicker
Alex 1 opens a new file, two clicks of the mouse
Eddie sips his coffee, puts it down, clicks
New folder, new file, new data
Data entry, spreadsheets
Alex 1 asks did you get the email
Alex 2 has his coffee, his white shirt, under the fluorescents
Statics noise, static, mouse clicks, keyboard
Every new click, new file, new data, new folder
Data in, data out, file, click, the static electronics
Alex 2 clicks, files, new folder, new deal, new data
Eddie clears his throat, softly, the static noise, flickers,
Every new love story is a tragedy
Alex 2 opens a new folder, inputs data, spreadsheets
Numbers in, Eddie clicks his mouse twice rapidly
Stale effluvia coffee, static noise, electric light
Alex 1 sniffles, clears his throat, the clock ticks softly
Eddie opens a new file, the electric screen reflects his fixed eyes
Alex 2 sips his coffee, opens a file, clicks, keyboard clacks
Stasis, complete stasis, electricity, nodes, linear graphs
Numbers input, data, new file, file transfer
Every old tragedy is a ghost story
Alex 2 sips his coffee, breathes, clears his throat, data
Spreadsheets, monitors, electricity, static, data input, output
Every ghost story is infinite
Alex 1 gets up for a new coffee
Eddie inputs data, spreadsheet, file, new folder
Electric lights, stasis, data, file, click, file, input exp..

Fluorescent uplit lights
Throws no shadows
Shows no life
No vestiges therein

Monitors' frontward glow
Radiates no future, no past
Well lit death
No matrix destination

The rows and cubes behold
A conformed neatness
An oppression
A regime built against creation

The soul flutters above
Unseen but seeming
To hold life
The inexorable dullness of life

Not arsed about your journey in.
You’re boring. It’s 8:30am
Aassault by tedium
Boring-*******-story.
Your daughter’s thirteenth-birthday-buffet.
Where’s my ******* pepper spray.
Don't care about your weekend love.
Where's the ******* get out clause  
******* about the pork pies and
Pass me the ******* tranquilse

banker's lamp green light of envy because
she will never be his late office nights
work done beneath sheer illicit thoughts
of her and her blue dress become his flights
of fancy wrapped tightly around her waist
blinds half-drawn the city is invasive
automobile engines and cigarettes
smell of lost love, dust, marriage and regrets
their futures already both faint shadows
on the walls outside the halls are empty
the desk is wet with sweat nobody knows
so they are free how empty they will leave
for homes already broken bittersweet
lives caught on repeat caught on repeat

A dark room filled up
The shadows stretching
Like a full cup
In the darkest etching

The aroma of ink
The crumble of paper
The eyes that sink
The dusty vapor

The click of a pen
The bright desktop light
The typing again
The inscribing of graphite

Out of adolescence
turned into metal men
We sit if front of computers
Run programs
Run for promotions
Run from what made us human
The smiles of yesterday have no place on a machine
Cold steel cold heart cold being
The sun never shines inside
Whether that be the office or your mind
We are not what we were
We are not what we were wanted us to be
We are robots surrounded by robots
In a metal city so unforgiving

The concrete jungle
is a mixture of successes
and failed dreams,
And we have been sifting
through this place now
for years.

The lights are dazzling
but sometimes cold,
You're a kindred spirit--
warm, beautiful, and bold.

Please don't let
the concrete jungle
gobble up a flicker of you.
Burn through all the tribulations,
Burn bright,
Burn blue.

Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go—
each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.  

They walk to their cars and they laugh as they go,
though we know their bright laughter’s the wine ...
then they pause at the road where the dark asphalt flows
endlessly on toward Zion ...

and they kiss one another as though they were friends,
and they promise to meet again “soon” ...
but the rivers of Jordan roll on without end,
and the mockingbird calls to the moon ...

and the katydids climb up the cropped hanging vines,
and the crickets chirp on out of tune ...
and their shadows, defined by the cryptic starlight,
seem spirits torn loose from their tombs.

And I know their brief lives are just eddies in time,
that their words are unreadable runes
unlikely to stand in this waterlogged land
when their corpses lie ravaged and ruined ...

You take my clenched fist and you give it a kiss
as though it’s something to be loved,
and the tears fill your eyes, outshining the night
and all the stars ringed high above ...

and you whisper, "It's time that we went back inside;
if you'd like, we can sit and just talk for a while."
And the hope in your eyes burns too deep, so I lie
and I say, "Yes, I would," to your small, troubled smile.

I vividly remember writing this poem after an office party the year I co-oped with AT&T (at that time the largest company in the world, with a lot of office parties). This was after my sophomore year in college, making me around 20 years old. The poem is “true” except that I was not the host because the party was at the house of one of the managers. Nor was I dating anyone seriously at the time.

Keywords/Tags: premonition, foreboding, time, loss, death, office party, wine, laughter, shadows