Poetry of Issue #7        Page 31

Grinding eyes in a rubber room

A job.
A job that is a life that is a job
pushes its unclean hand
up through your rectum and rips out
pieces and particles of you, casting
them to the wind.
A job that slices your head at the neck
then defecates down the hole it’s made,
then reaches down to pull your hiding
soul loose from its moorings
straight up and out the headhole
where it can spit on and suckle
all of the
creativity, chew it and swallow.
A job that ridicules the mess of a man
it has made, and waggles the waffling
corpse for co-workers to chuckle at.

But behind their shield of laughter
is a terribly itching fear that no
scratching can ease, the fear that
the same fate has already
claimed their bodies, with their souls
already retched out in the rotting
sun.

  R. Bremner