These are the only two poems I’ve ever written, not much of a poetry guy in the first place.
This one is about my security guard job.
The Factory
by
Kevin Connolly
On guarded ground the hound did stray.
This land to keep–hand on hip I will stand.
Those lonely bones got through the gateway.
On the final ray of that desperate day.
I can hear him whimper from the wood.
This land to keep–even more to secure.
The factory sleeps smoke stack deep against the black backdrop.
The conveyor belt conveys no motion and nothing moves.
The dials are cold and detached, remote and removed.
The hard levers make me think of long forgotten phone numbers.
Like the silver so impersonal on a doctor’s device, I lock office doors.
I can hear the canine call out a cry.
His hungry howl, his ghostly growl, it outstayed the night.
This land to keep–this soil made safe.
This land to protect as property of mine.
My badge and my boots have a polish and a shine.
Boredom, silence and solitude, this is my retreat.
But the dog pulls me to a dark path with my lunch meat.
Flashlight on full beam,
I find him laying sideways with a crossed-paw and a bare ribcage.
That dead dying beast.
A bread crumb just may have been a feast outdone by none.
I dig a sick plot to bury the little being, my sympathy sent on a blank greeting card with tears that smear the inky pen shake.
In the distance, I hear hooligans who are sure to miss the morning class.
Whipping and pitching rocks through the factory windows.
That shattered sound of broken glass. I can identify.
The next poem has no title, and its about the future.
And here are the headlines. Your head. My lines.
Comes complete with caption. Fill you with the fragment.
Chop talk. Cold speak.
Words all flowing like flowers until they found a faster and more efficient way.
Emotions run low. Pleasure is lost. The tone of technology.
No expression on the face, just a blunt sagging effect.
The computer mood matches that of a human.
Flip side. Flip side.
The reverse is true.
So empty out and become numb.
Techno-trend. Super cool gadgets.
Easy as a push of a button.
Frail creatures who specialize in nothing but pushing buttons.
The way sink taps erased the walk to the water well.
The original sin. Penalty was a painful baby birth. Long hard days of toil in the soil, no more.
Progress is a revolt, a storming rebellion.
The all elusive advance.
Revolutions made my monkey machine men.
The great momentum. The inevitable.
Let us hope the artificial apple is edible.