Swing Shift Blues

A poem by Alan Dugan

What is better than leaving a bar

in the middle of the afternoon

besides staying in it or not

having gone into it in the first place

because you had a decent woman to be with?

The air smells particularly fresh

after the stale beer and piss smells.

You can stare up at the whole sky:

it’s blue and white and does not

stare back at you like the bar mirror,

and there’s Whats-‘is-name coming out

right behind you saying, “I don’t

believe it, I don’t believe it: there

he is, staring up at the fucking sky

with his mouth open. Don’t

you realize, you stupid son of a bitch,

that it is a quarter to four

and we have to clock in in

fifteen minutes to go to work?”

So we go to work and do no work

and can even breathe in the Bull’s face

because he’s been into the other bar

that we don’t go to when he’s there.

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Poems in English 

• Starlight by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Peri by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Parao Camping Ground by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Enfifa River by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Devoted Slave by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of The Colours By Taj Mahomed by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Taj Mahomed by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Ramesram Temple Girl by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Khan Zada by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Jasoda by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song Of Faiz Ulla by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Song By Gulbaz by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sleep by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Shivratri The Night Of Shiva While The Procession Passed At Ramesram by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sher Afzul by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sea Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Sampan Song by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Rutland Gate by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Reverie Zahir U Din by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Reverie Ofmahomed Akram At The Tamarind Tank by Adela Florence Nicolson

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