TRACK-WORKERS

TRACK-WORKERS

The rails you carry cut into your hands,Like the sharp lips of an unsought lover.As you stumble over the tiesSunlight is clinging, yellow spitRaining down upon your faces.You are the living cuspidors of day.Dirt, its teasing ghost, dust,And passionless kicks of steel, fill you.Flowers sprouting near the tracks,Brush their lightly odoured handsIn vain against your stale jackets of sweat.Within you, minds and heartsAre snoring to the curt rhythm of your breath.You do not see this blustering blackbirdPromenading on a barbed-wire fence.He eyes you with spritelike hauteur,Unable to understandWhy your motions endlessly copy each other,One of you, a meek and burly Pole,Peers a moment at the strutting blackbirdWith a fleeting shade of dull resentment....There is always one among youWho recoils from glimpsing corpses.

The rails you carry cut into your hands,Like the sharp lips of an unsought lover.As you stumble over the tiesSunlight is clinging, yellow spitRaining down upon your faces.You are the living cuspidors of day.Dirt, its teasing ghost, dust,And passionless kicks of steel, fill you.Flowers sprouting near the tracks,Brush their lightly odoured handsIn vain against your stale jackets of sweat.Within you, minds and heartsAre snoring to the curt rhythm of your breath.You do not see this blustering blackbirdPromenading on a barbed-wire fence.He eyes you with spritelike hauteur,Unable to understandWhy your motions endlessly copy each other,One of you, a meek and burly Pole,Peers a moment at the strutting blackbirdWith a fleeting shade of dull resentment....There is always one among youWho recoils from glimpsing corpses.

The rails you carry cut into your hands,

Like the sharp lips of an unsought lover.

As you stumble over the ties

Sunlight is clinging, yellow spit

Raining down upon your faces.

You are the living cuspidors of day.

Dirt, its teasing ghost, dust,

And passionless kicks of steel, fill you.

Flowers sprouting near the tracks,

Brush their lightly odoured hands

In vain against your stale jackets of sweat.

Within you, minds and hearts

Are snoring to the curt rhythm of your breath.

You do not see this blustering blackbird

Promenading on a barbed-wire fence.

He eyes you with spritelike hauteur,

Unable to understand

Why your motions endlessly copy each other,

One of you, a meek and burly Pole,

Peers a moment at the strutting blackbird

With a fleeting shade of dull resentment....

There is always one among you

Who recoils from glimpsing corpses.


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