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 

• Sonnet. On A Picture Of Leander poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet: Oh! How I Love, On A Fair Summer’s Eve poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet IX. Keen, Fitful Gusts Are poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet IV. How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time! poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet III. Written On The Day That Mr. Leigh Hunt Left Prison poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet II. To ****** poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’d poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet I. To My Brother George poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet: Before He Went poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet: As From The Darkening Gloom A Silver Dove poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet: After Dark Vapors Have Oppress’d Our Plains poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sonnet. A Dream, After Reading Dante’s Episode Of Paulo And Francesca poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Song. Written On A Blank Page In Beaumont And Fletcher’s Works poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Song Of Four Faries poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Song. I Had A Dove poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Song. Hush, Hush! Tread Softly! poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Sharing Eve’s Apple poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Otho The Great – Act V poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Otho The Great – Act IV poem – John Keats poems by John Keats
• Otho The Great – Act III poem – John Keats poems by John Keats

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