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 

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• Back-View by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Attadale, West Highlands by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Arabian Night’s Entertainments by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Apparition by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Anterotics by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Andante Con Moto by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• Allegro Maestoso by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• After by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• A Wink From Hesper by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• A Desolate Shore by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• A Child by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• A Bowl Of Roses by William Ernest Henley by William Ernest Henley
• The Swamp Fox by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• The Lost Pleiad by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• The Decay Of A People by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• The Bard by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• The Angel Of The Church by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Sumter In Ruins by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms
• Song In March by William Gilmore Simms by William Gilmore Simms

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