the outlaw poetry network

Painting by Ernest Fiene

night shift poem

Beams of the setting sun
awaken us into action
moonrise our call to arms
as shadows spread,
and darkness fills the window
We put on our uniforms
and our game faces
again
preparing for our nightlong struggles.

You, day people,
will never know our singular nocturnal existences,
our time-line diametrically opposed to yours;
as you settle into your couch
we contemplate our night-day ahead,
Waking thoughts creaking into motion
As your eyelids droop
we head to our stations,
Puddles of moonlight marking our way
as you drop off to sleep
we arrive,
Strolling in with a joke and a laugh
As your dreams begin
we pace empty skyscrapers, factory aisles
and wide warehouse floors
we do a hundred, a thousand jobs you’ll never see
a swarm of tasks taken for granted

As our solitudes and struggles,
arguments and actions continue
the outside world
plunges further into darkness

Ours is the chirp of cricket
the howl of dogs far away
the slither of slugs
and night-crawler worms
Bat radar and owl eye focus;
the beat of dark wing
and cloud drifting past full moon
the fog
the mist
and the smell of wet leaf,
also the tugboat’s hoot
the train whistle,
and faraway factory pulse;
We’re the hands on a clock
that won’t move forward
Our night shift passing glacier-slow.

Like an exhausted runner
struggling toward the finish line
We finally make it
all the way to the end.
Released
into daylight
and the trip home,
eyelids drooping
muscles tingling
with the sweet buzz of staying up all night
Under cover of darkness we’ve performed our jobs
when you left in the evening the work wasn’t done
when you come back this morning it will be;
Our shift a magic wand we have waved.

Shuffling back home
we meet people going backwards
rushing to work
instead of coming back
Morning people
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaday dwellers
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaliens
they head back to their stations
and we head back to our lairs;
two different breeds
crisscrossing
like nightshade
to a morning glory
or a stealthy barn owl
to dawn’s busy chirpers

hidden army
slowly marching home,
a mirage turning back to a heat shimmer.

Clandestine workforce
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaainvisible, we
Elves
hiding just behind the veil,
the hem of night’s cloak.

Ken Greenley

is a writer who lives in Denver, Colorado. The number of places he’s lived is only exceeded by the number of job’s he’s had. Greenley likes to explore the themes of class division (in a supposedly classless country), the struggle to stay spiritual in the modern world, and the growth episodes that occur in childhood. He thinks art, particularly writing, should combat media brainwashing, and should examine the clash between what we’re told and what really happens. He tries to make his material as fuuny as possible, because he finds it hard to make modern life seriously, and considers it his mission “to make people laugh and think at the same time.”

Much more on Ken Greenley can be found by clicking here… and here…

some related articles are listed below:

1. ken greenley | gone
2. ken greenley | so much less than us
3. ken greenley | weapons
4. ken greenley | welcome to canyonlands
5. ken greenley | really big steps
6. ken greenley | creed
7. ken greenley | don’t fall in
8. ken greenley | gasoholic
9. ken greenley | sacrifice
10. ken greenley | tough on the heights
11. ken greenley | everyman today
12. ken greenley | magnetic colfax
13. ken greenley | city playground
14. ken greenley | immolation (altar of change)
15. ken greenley | the bees don’t want that monsanto food
16. ken greenley | miriam halliday borkowski
17. ken greenley | dead cans o’dad beer
18. roger singer | last night & 7am
19. jay sosnicki | night terrors
20. milner place | blues in the night
21. tony moffeit | I’ll never get out of this night alive
22. pris campbell | leave your hat on & night wind
23. todd moore | night blood, red hands
24. roger singer | soaked on jazz | solid wind | with night
25. lawrence welsh | el paso poem
26. a.d. winans | early winter poem
27. eugenia borkowski | untitled poem
28. mike golden | write a fucking poem
29. todd moore | fighting death for the poem
30. todd moore | the machine gun blood of the poem
31. todd moore | the great american poem
32. dennis lereoy kangalee | spleen & the last poem I will ever write
33. a.d. winans | lady death & poem for a poet friend
34. olly bryan | poem for jack micheline (in my room)
35. todd moore | scratching it out street level for the poem
36. todd moore | the fevers and sweats of the nightmare poem
37. a.d. winans | poem for roberto vargas and the nicaragua freedom fighters
38. dave roskos | the young woman… | why he got canned from the poem factory
39. david plumb | letter poem to the morning of friendship and madness
40. todd moore | machine guns, guernica, and the outlaw poem
41. gerald locklin | world parade night