Graveyard shift

midnight hours, dark and bleak,
wornout muscles, bones that creak,
living nightmares loom ahead,
others laugh at what you dread,
hopeless, tangled, time goes by,
i often wonder, why oh why,
a whistle blows, the line is down,
another crash in brewerytown,
the people stare, you stop and sigh,
and walk to see the reason why,
the brewery is a living beast,
upon my peace the thing doth feast.

4:00 A.M. on the bottleline
1991