Elegy To the Worker

The bricks of the human world are dying.

Others are being born as we speak,

But others still are dying

And the world is dying and changing with them.

Some are dying in bleachy hospital rooms

With blood-smeared hands,

But others are not.

The world is dying in fields

With a back lain-upon by fresh harvest,

Hands caked in loam

And a face creased by sun.

The world is dying in factories,

Gazing its brains out through the smog

And over clamorous machinery,

Bleeding tears into cheap t-shirts.

The world is dying in offices,

Dreams pulled out and splayed about

Like a salmon's innards

Upon the printer-paper butcher board.

The world is dying at sea,

With salt-crusted hair

And burning, split calluses,

Beety droplets staining the passive blue.

The world dies in death:

In rusty mill bones

And hollow farms

Rented out to memories.

The world is dying,

And where is the ceremony?

Where is the procession?

Where is the twenty-one gun salute?

The world goes into many graves

Packaged in a homemade box,

With Duty fulfilled

And not a single note of "Taps".