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 

• The Fascination Of What’s Difficult by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Falling Of The Leaves by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Everlasting Voices by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Double Vision Of Michael Robartes by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Dolls by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Delphic Oracle Upon Plotinus by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Dawn by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Dancer At Cruachan And Cro-Patrick by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Curse Of Cromwell by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Crazed Moon by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Countess Cathleen In Paradise by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Coming Of Wisdom With Time by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Cold Heaven by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Cloak, The Boat And The Shoes by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Circus Animals’ Desertion by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Choice by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Chambermaid’s First Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Chambermaid’s Second Song by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The Peacock by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats
• The O’Rahilly by William Butler Yeats by William Butler Yeats

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