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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• The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The French Army In Russia, 1812-13 by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The French And the Spanish Guerillas by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Fountain by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Forsaken by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Force Of Prayer, Or, The Founding Of Bolton, A Tradition by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Farmer Of Tilsbury Vale by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Fairest, Brightest, Hues Of Ether Fade by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Emigrant Mother by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Eagle and the Dove by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Danish Boy by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Cottager To Her Infant by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Complaint Of A Forsaken Indian Woman by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Childless Father by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Brothers by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Birth Of Love by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• The Affliction Of Margaret by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Surprised By Joy by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Stray Pleasures by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth
• Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known by William Wordsworth by William Wordsworth

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