888
By Daniel Browning
Like a drunk peacock I once strutted the golden mile.
By night’s end my costume was stained by common assault, and I was drowning
in the incessant waves
of a churning sea
Littered with the flotsam and jetsam of broken dreams
The sickening rise and fall of endless motion.
A Clydesdale festooned with these garlands
Once pounded the dirty mile before me
Blinkers on
In this configuration
The number eight
Is a call to arms
A battle cry
8 hours work
8 hours play
8 hours rest
In the end the bosses won
These relics
A mournful ode to spent labour
Backs broken on the torture wheel
Like so many canaries in the coalmine.
In grave silence
Our voices strained to breaking
Roused by old songs in a major key
We will march
