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 

• Afridi Love by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Adoration by Adela Florence Nicolson
• Whispering In Wattle Boughs by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• Thoras Song Ashtaroth by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Swimmer by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Sick Stockrider by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• The Last Leap by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• Gone by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• An Exiles Farewell by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• A Song Of Autumn by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• A Dedication by Adam Lindsay Gordon
• Medical Ethics by Fledermaus
• Facebook by Fledermaus
• Vain by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Myself by Adah Isaacs Menken
• My Heritage by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Miserimus by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Memory by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Karazah Karl by Adah Isaacs Menken
• Judith by Adah Isaacs Menken

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