General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:

>> Michael Pendragon wrote:
>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>> > Michael Pendragon wrote:
>>> > > Will Dockery wrote:
>>>
>>> > >>> Passage Through Ennui
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> 35 years ago
>>> > >>> it was another
>>> > >>> long bitter Summer
>>> > >>> that dark humid July 1985.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I was working
>>> > >>> the graveyard shift
>>> > >>> operating one of the service elevators
>>> > >>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Galatea and I
>>> > >>> had split up again
>>> > >>> earlier in the year
>>> > >>> after our explosive reunion
>>> > >>> in 1983.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> It ended quickly
>>> > >>> after a huge fight
>>> > >>> with her brother
>>> > >>> over an old score
>>> > >>> usually forgotten.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I won the fight
>>> > >>> but actually lost.
>>> > >>> Tracy gave up
>>> > >>> and Galatea left with him.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> The year
>>> > >>> it all came apart
>>> > >>> seemingly permanent.
>>> > >>> Two years of good times
>>> > >>> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> All I could see was
>>> > >>> a shut down gloom.
>>> > >>> The only laughter I heard
>>> > >>> was down in the break room.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> The brown haze of factory air
>>> > >>> angry faced people
>>> > >>> and the music
>>> > >>> of metal machines.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Working all night
>>> > >>> sleeping all day.
>>> > >>> Sipping coffee
>>> > >>> to chase the road aspirins.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Sitting on the steps
>>> > >>> over by a giant fan.
>>> > >>> keeping up with my workers
>>> > >>> usually five ladies
>>> > >>> at the machines.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> If one of the ladies
>>> > >>> needed anything
>>> > >>> they'd just look my way
>>> > >>> and wave.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Several times a night
>>> > >>> I'd make a buy and fly
>>> > >>> bringing back coffee for them
>>> > >>> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Jotting down notes
>>> > >>> doodling narratives
>>> > >>> creating reality
>>> > >>> building Shadowville
>>> > >>> from the ground up.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Riding my elevator
>>> > >>> up and down
>>> > >>> creating samizdat
>>> > >>> in the smoking booth.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Down to the Reel room
>>> > >>> my elevator filled
>>> > >>> with empty racks
>>> > >>> to bring up the full ones
>>> > >>> for the ladies upstairs.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> All night
>>> > >>> keeping it rolling
>>> > >>> making it smooth
>>> > >>> for the ladies
>>> > >>> to make production.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Finally to clock out
>>> > >>> as the sad whistle would blow
>>> > >>> we would stumble out the gate
>>> > >>> into the grey dawn.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Some headed for breakfast
>>> > >>> and a beer
>>> > >>> while always I headed home
>>> > >>> for sleep
>>> > >>> as quickly as possible.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>>> > >>> where I had shared a trailer
>>> > >>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>>> > >>> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Bob worked downstairs
>>> > >>> at the Autoclave
>>> > >>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>>> > >>> into the yarn.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>>> > >>> ran the huge Dryers
>>> > >>> a super hot
>>> > >>> chemical steam bath area.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Jim married
>>> > >>> my childhood friend Pamela
>>> > >>> and passed away too soon
>>> > >>> from a heart attack
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I'm not sure how workers
>>> > >>> down there
>>> > >>> survived the heat
>>> > >>> and harsh smell.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Actually
>>> > >>> I noticed not so well
>>> > >>> as years went by
>>> > >>> several old friends
>>> > >>> still haunt me.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> There was a guy named Bill
>>> > >>> from Chicago
>>> > >>> found in the Dryer room
>>> > >>> coughing up blood from TB.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>>> > >>> was found
>>> > >>> giggling in the warehouse
>>> > >>> up in the bales of fiber
>>> > >>> one line of meth too many.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Little Rosell
>>> > >>> on the Reels downstairs
>>> > >>> hot little femme fatale
>>> > >>> who I would know better later.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> An unteresting lady
>>> > >>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>>> > >>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>>> > >>> she was the supervisors' choice.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>>> > >>> found in a hallway
>>> > >>> died there of old age.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> The list goes on
>>> > >>> many who did not survive
>>> > >>> until the shut down day
>>> > >>> another poem for another day.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> At that time of the night
>>> > >>> with machines all running right
>>> > >>> many of us could wander
>>> > >>> have some coffee
>>> > >>> and get some fresh air.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Bob was a good friend
>>> > >>> at the job
>>> > >>> quick with a joke
>>> > >>> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Many smokers and drinkers
>>> > >>> would hang out
>>> > >>> on the porch
>>> > >>> outside the Autoclave room.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> When he heard
>>> > >>> of my latest domestic disaster
>>> > >>> Bob offered
>>> > >>> to rent me a room.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> In a rented room
>>> > >>> in Bob's trailer
>>> > >>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>>> > >>> without the laughs.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> The bottom fell out
>>> > >>> we didn't get along
>>> > >>> outside of the job
>>> > >>> so I moved out
>>> > >>> to North Highland.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I moved in
>>> > >>> next door to the Holt family
>>> > >>> old school mill folk
>>> > >>> in the former mill village.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>>> > >>> all worked at
>>> > >>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>>> > >>> like their family before them.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Karen worked in the supply room
>>> > >>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>>> > >>> Don covered my job
>>> > >>> during the say shift.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> For some reason
>>> > >>> it was important to them
>>> > >>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>>> > >>> that I was their cousin.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I never did figure that out
>>> > >>> but it was cool with me.
>>> > >>> I liked them all
>>> > >>> they were down to Earth folks.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> The day I moved in
>>> > >>> I had my music playing loud
>>> > >>> outside my window
>>> > >>> was the river
>>> > >>> and then Alabama.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I would never have imagined
>>> > >>> how that area would look now
>>> > >>> with the row of houses demolished
>>> > >>> and with the Riverwalk below.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I was two floors up
>>> > >>> but I still felt
>>> > >>> like a mole
>>> > >>> like a subterranean.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Wake up
>>> > >>> it was Monday
>>> > >>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>>> > >>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>>> > >>> down below.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Billy was an old school
>>> > >>> Card and Blending room man
>>> > >>> never late
>>> > >>> sick or well he was on the job.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Slither down the stairs
>>> > >>> so far so good
>>> > >>> jump in and ride on
>>> > >>> the the alternate universe
>>> > >>> the factory.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> He never failed
>>> > >>> to have a spare Budweiser
>>> > >>> and a smoke
>>> > >>> for the short ride to
>>> > >>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> We'd get there in time
>>> > >>> to stand around the parking lot
>>> > >>> and catch a few words
>>> > >>> with the crew.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Then the whistle would blow
>>> > >>> and it was on your mark
>>> > >>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>>> > >>> in another land.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>>> > >>> mill coffee
>>> > >>> and then
>>> > >>> in a determined stroll.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>>> > >>> and the upstairs Reels
>>> > >>> to catch everything up quick
>>> > >>> get the game going right.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Then down the elevator
>>> > >>> to the Spinning room
>>> > >>> sweat shop
>>> > >>> a dozen ladies
>>> > >>> smoking and yelling conversations.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Loud roaring
>>> > >>> antique seeming machinery
>>> > >>> all all points
>>> > >>> no escape from
>>> > >>> the chaos and thunder.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Get it all caught up
>>> > >>> then down to the sub basement
>>> > >>> to pick up the prize left for me
>>> > >>> by Don
>>> > >>> my first shift doppelganger.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Any time Don
>>> > >>> skipped out early
>>> > >>> and left everything
>>> > >>> off the mark, it was no problem.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> He'd leave me a joint
>>> > >>> at a certain spot
>>> > >>> in the sub basement.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> The basement was
>>> > >>> creepy enough
>>> > >>> but the sub basement
>>> > >>> seemed right out
>>> > >>> of a horror movie.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Needless to say
>>> > >>> I'd keep my head down
>>> > >>> and would try to get out
>>> > >>> of the sub basement quickly.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I had been distributing
>>> > >>> my broadsheets
>>> > >>> among my co-worker friends
>>> > >>> news of the day
>>> > >>> with a twist.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> They were entertained
>>> > >>> by my poetry
>>> > >>> and comic strips
>>> > >>> looking for themselves
>>> > >>> in the lines on paper.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Pat, the personnel director
>>> > >>> called me in her office
>>> > >>> and put the kibosh
>>> > >>> on my broadsheet.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> My poetry and art zine
>>> > >>> had violated the strict
>>> > >>> "No Distribution" policy
>>> > >>> that no outside reading
>>> > >>> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Since I had not been
>>> > >>> aware of this policy
>>> > >>> I apologized
>>> > >>> and kept the broadsides
>>> > >>> outside the gates from then on.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Absolutely
>>> > >>> no foreknowledge
>>> > >>> of what was coming next
>>> > >>> taking one minute at a time.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Getting from one minute
>>> > >>> to the next
>>> > >>> always in a hurry
>>> > >>> caught up in the time
>>> > >>> flashing by.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Not even giving a damn
>>> > >>> or so I told myself
>>> > >>> by that point in time
>>> > >>> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I never could have foreseen
>>> > >>> twenty years later in 2005
>>> > >>> standing in a crowd
>>> > >>> watching the old mill in flames
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> I was living
>>> > >>> in the worn out townhouse
>>> > >>> at 3226 River Avenue
>>> > >>> once part of a mill village.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> First week of the month
>>> > >>> was always annoying
>>> > >>> so much noise
>>> > >>> as I tried to sleep.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
>>> > >>> beating on the sides
>>> > >>> of the houses with his cane
>>> > >>> trying to collect his rent money.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Alone
>>> > >>> in my upstairs office
>>> > >>> writing my manifesto
>>> > >>> in poetry and comic strips.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Right side duplex
>>> > >>> next door to the Holden family.
>>> > >>> Two stories overlooking
>>> > >>> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> If I had the foresight
>>> > >>> I would know sitting and waiting
>>> > >>> was wasting precious time
>>> > >>> the cruelty of moments.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Time can't be saved
>>> > >>> like in a bank.
>>> > >>> I thought I was biding my time
>>> > >>> while I was losing everything.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> As the North Highland
>>> > >>> sun blazed down.
>>> > >>> And as the cool white moon
>>> > >>> seemed to watch over it all.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> The big rooms
>>> > >>> and empty house
>>> > >>> suited my mood
>>> > >>> my lonesome and blue.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Looking out my upstairs window
>>> > >>> dabbling on a canvas
>>> > >>> not a clue
>>> > >>> what was to come.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
>>> > >>> for a beer and some smokes
>>> > >>> the place is long gone now
>>> > >>> 35 years later.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Back then it was
>>> > >>> the general store
>>> > >>> where the locals stood around
>>> > >>> shooting the breeze.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Although relatively close
>>> > >>> the walk was winding
>>> > >>> to get around
>>> > >>> the far side of the factory.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Found a girl named Margo
>>> > >>> she lived
>>> > >>> a few doors down
>>> > >>> from my place.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> She said she liked my music
>>> > >>> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
>>> > >>> was The Clash
>>> > >>> but I found her naivete charming.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Took her out and played the game
>>> > >>> but my heart
>>> > >>> just wasn't in it
>>> > >>> I never saw Margo again
>>> > >>> after that night.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> At that time all seemed lost
>>> > >>> just goes to show
>>> > >>> I'm not much of a fortune teller
>>> > >>> but kept hope alive.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Many nights seemed like others
>>> > >>> so I trudged
>>> > >>> through the days
>>> > >>> wrote poetry
>>> > >>> through the night.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Crossed my heart
>>> > >>> and looked forward
>>> > >>> to good luck
>>> > >>> and happy days again.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> No happy ending
>>> > >>> was expected
>>> > >>> in the foreseeable future
>>> > >>> just more of the same.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> -Will Dockery
>>> >
>>> > >> "Passage Through" implies that one actually passes through (and, therefore, beyond) something. The speaker of this (cough!) poem ends trapped "in [a] foreseeable future
>>> > >> [that is] just more of the same" (which would constitute a state of ennui). IOW: the poem is not about a passage through a state of ennui, but a passage into an unending state of the same.
>>> >
>>> > >> However, since this colossal piece of grammatical incompetence was penned by a man who has been proclaimed the single worst poet who ever lived, such idiocies are to be expected.
>>> >
>>> > >>> 35 years ago
>>> > >>> it was another
>>> > >>> long bitter Summer
>>> > >>> that dark humid July 1985.
>>> >
>>> > >> Cold is bitter. Humidity is not.
>>> >
>>> > >> Nor, for that matter, would a humid July be dark.
>>> >
>>> > >> The doubling of adjectives ("long bitter" and "dark humid") is the earmark of an amateur.
>>> >
>>> > >> The doubling of atrociously inappropriate adjectives is the signature of an illiterate moron.
>>> >
>>> > >>> I was working
>>> > >>> the graveyard shift
>>> > >>> operating one of the service elevators
>>> > >>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>> Galatea and I
>>> >
>>> > >> One doubts that any resident of Gooberville was named "Galatea." If there's one thing worse than a dumbassed hillbilly, it's a dumbassed hillbilly waxing pretentious.
>>> >
>>> > >>> had split up again
>>> > >>> earlier in the year
>>> > >>> after our explosive reunion
>>> > >>> in 1983.
>>> >
>>> > >> What a torturously belabored sentence!
>>> >
>>> > >> And, reunions are not explosive -- unless they're reunions between the Hatfields and McCoys. An explosion is destructive, and tends to blast two people apart -- which is why it is generally used to described breakups. But, as we're all too well aware, our resident Donkey has difficulty with multi-syllabic words.
>>> >
>>> > >>> It ended quickly
>>> > >>> after a huge fight
>>> > >>> with her brother
>>> > >>> over an old score
>>> > >>> usually forgotten.
>>> >
>>> > >> WTF is the above snatch of gibberish supposed to mean?
>>> >
>>> > >> Who know? Who cares? And who in their right mind would ever want to subject themselves to any more of the Donkey's sub-moronic spew?
>>> >
>>> > >> What the hell... let's have some more fun with this epic fail.
>>> >
>>> > >>> The year
>>> > >>> it all came apart
>>> > >>> seemingly permanent.
>>> >
>>> > >> Another non-sentence.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Two years of good times
>>> > >>> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>> >
>>> > >> Galatea kicked over the still?
>>> >
>>> > >> Was this "poem" edited by General Stink? It's got his signature surplus of periods.
>>> >
>>> > >>> All I could see was
>>> > >>> a shut down gloom.
>>> >
>>> > >> But if you shut the gloom down, shouldn't you be left with sunshine?
>>> >
>>> > >>> The only laughter I heard
>>> > >>> was down in the break room.
>>> >
>>> > >> Why? Did you recite your "poetry" there?
>>> >
>>> > >>> The brown haze of factory air
>>> > >>> angry faced people
>>> > >>> and the music
>>> > >>> of metal machines.
>>> >
>>> > >> A non-sentence of strung together fragments. Was the air in the break room brown and hazy?
>>> >
>>> > >> No wonder you write like someone who's suffered severe brain damage.
>>> >
>>> > >> > Working all night
>>> > >>> sleeping all day.
>>> > >>> Sipping coffee
>>> > >>> to chase the road aspirins.
>>> >
>>> > >> Forgetting to include subjects and verbs.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Sitting on the steps
>>> > >>> over by a giant fan.
>>> > >>> keeping up with my workers
>>> > >>> usually five ladies
>>> > >>> at the machines.
>>> >
>>> > >> The period after "fan" signifies that the first fragment has come to an end.. Were this "poem" composed in English, the following fragment should start with a capital letter.
>>> >
>>> > >>> If one of the ladies
>>> > >>> needed anything
>>> > >>> they'd just look my way
>>> > >>> and wave.
>>> >
>>> > >> If one of the ladies were two or more women morphed into a single entity, perhaps. Otherwise, *she* would just look your way and wave.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Several times a night
>>> > >>> I'd make a buy and fly
>>> > >>> bringing back coffee for them
>>> > >>> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>> >
>>> > >> If you're referring to the cardboard takeout coffee holders given out by the vendor, those would not be makeshift. A makeshift cardboard tray would be one that you substituted from a piece of cardboard that you found lying on the ground, or stuffed in a recycle bin.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Jotting down notes
>>> > >>> doodling narratives
>>> > >>> creating reality
>>> > >>> building Shadowville
>>> > >>> from the ground up.
>>> >
>>> > >> Abandoning subjects, verbs, and sense.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Riding my elevator
>>> > >>> up and down
>>> > >>> creating samizdat
>>> > >>> in the smoking booth.
>>> >
>>> > >> More of the same.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Down to the Reel room
>>> > >>> my elevator filled
>>> > >>> with empty racks
>>> > >>> to bring up the full ones
>>> > >>> for the ladies upstairs.
>>> >
>>> > >> What a horribly convoluted non-sentence! Only M.C. Escher could envision a freight elevator filled with empty racks to bring up full ones!
>>> >
>>> > >>> All night
>>> > >>> keeping it rolling
>>> > >>> making it smooth
>>> > >>> for the ladies
>>> > >>> to make production.
>>> >
>>> > >> One does not make production. Production is the act of making something.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Finally to clock out
>>> > >>> as the sad whistle would blow
>>> > >>> we would stumble out the gate
>>> > >>> into the grey dawn.
>>> >
>>> > >> The last three lines would have been a sentence, had you not stuck the initial fragment on top of them.
>>> >
>>> > >> The "sad whistle" is clichéd to such a point that it actually does the groaning for your readers.
>>> >
>>> > >>> Some headed for breakfast
>>> > >>> and a beer
>>> > >>> while always I headed home
>>> > >>> for sleep
>>> > >>> as quickly as possible.
>>> >
>>> > >
>>> > > gibberish
>>> > As George Dance explain :
>>> > "Certainly his idea that [...] "not written in complete sentences" is a non-starter when it comes to poetry, period. The grammatical units of poetry are lines and stanzas, not (as in prose) sentences and paragraph..."
>>> > >> -George J. Dance
>>> >
>>> > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.arts.poetry.comments/mXC-5dB8YuI/rOjBFX1XAgAJ
>>> > But, as we know, "modern" and "avant-garde" poetry just sails over you pointy little pinhead, doesn't it?
>>> Don't flatter yourself

Will Dockery wrote:
>
> Passage Through Ennui
>
> 35 years ago
> it was another
> long bitter Summer
> that dark humid July 1985.
>
> I was working
> the graveyard shift
> operating one of the service elevators
> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>
> Galatea and I
> had split up again
> earlier in the year
> after our explosive reunion
> in 1983.
>
> It ended quickly
> after a huge fight
> with her brother
> over an old score
> usually forgotten.
>
> I won the fight
> but actually lost.
> Tracy gave up
> and Galatea left with him.
>
> The year
> it all came apart
> seemingly permanent.
> Two years of good times
> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>
> All I could see was
> a shut down gloom.
> The only laughter I heard
> was down in the break room.
>
> The brown haze of factory air
> angry faced people
> and the music
> of metal machines.
>
> Working all night
> sleeping all day.
> Sipping coffee
> to chase the road aspirins.
>
> Sitting on the steps
> over by a giant fan.
> keeping up with my workers
> usually five ladies
> at the machines.
>
> If one of the ladies
> needed anything
> they'd just look my way
> and wave.
>
> Several times a night
> I'd make a buy and fly
> bringing back coffee for them
> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>
> Jotting down notes
> doodling narratives
> creating reality
> building Shadowville
> from the ground up.
>
> Riding my elevator
> up and down
> creating samizdat
> in the smoking booth.
>
> Down to the Reel room
> my elevator filled
> with empty racks
> to bring up the full ones
> for the ladies upstairs.
>
> All night
> keeping it rolling
> making it smooth
> for the ladies
> to make production.
>
> Finally to clock out
> as the sad whistle would blow
> we would stumble out the gate
> into the grey dawn.
>
> Some headed for breakfast
> and a beer
> while always I headed home
> for sleep
> as quickly as possible.
>
> Living at Mockingbird Court
> where I had shared a trailer
> with my friend Bob Whitman
> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>
> Bob worked downstairs
> at the Autoclave
> the machine that steamed chemicals
> into the yarn.
>
> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
> ran the huge Dryers
> a super hot
> chemical steam bath area.
>
> Jim married
> my childhood friend Pamela
> and passed away too soon
> from a heart attack
>
> I'm not sure how workers
> down there
> survived the heat
> and harsh smell.
>
> Actually
> I noticed not so well
> as years went by
> several old friends
> still haunt me.
>
> There was a guy named Bill
> from Chicago
> found in the Dryer room
> coughing up blood from TB.
>
> Chip, another Autoclave man
> was found
> giggling in the warehouse
> up in the bales of fiber
> one line of meth too many.
>
> Little Rosell
> on the Reels downstairs
> hot little femme fatale
> who I would know better later.
>
> An unteresting lady
> in her Daisy Duke shorts
> and "Flashdance" shirt
> she was the supervisors' choice.
>
> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
> found in a hallway
> died there of old age.
>
> The list goes on
> many who did not survive
> until the shut down day
> another poem for another day.
>
> At that time of the night
> with machines all running right
> many of us could wander
> have some coffee
> and get some fresh air.
>
> Bob was a good friend
> at the job
> quick with a joke
> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>
> Many smokers and drinkers
> would hang out
> on the porch
> outside the Autoclave room.
>
> When he heard
> of my latest domestic disaster
> Bob offered
> to rent me a room.
>
> In a rented room
> in Bob's trailer
> like a scene from The Odd Couple
> without the laughs.
>
> The bottom fell out
> we didn't get along
> outside of the job
> so I moved out
> to North Highland.
>
> I moved in
> next door to the Holt family
> old school mill folk
> in the former mill village.
>
> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
> all worked at
> Shadowville Spinning Mill
> like their family before them.
>
> Karen worked in the supply room
> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
> Don covered my job
> during the say shift.
>
> For some reason
> it was important to them
> that they tell Mr. Newberry
> that I was their cousin.
>
> I never did figure that out
> but it was cool with me.
> I liked them all
> they were down to Earth folks.
>
> The day I moved in
> I had my music playing loud
> outside my window
> was the river
> and then Alabama.
>
> I would never have imagined
> how that area would look now
> with the row of houses demolished
> and with the Riverwalk below.
>
> I was two floors up
> but I still felt
> like a mole
> like a subterranean.
>
> Wake up
> it was Monday
> I could hear Billy Teakson
> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
> down below.
>
> Billy was an old school
> Card and Blending room man
> never late
> sick or well he was on the job.
>
> Slither down the stairs
> so far so good
> jump in and ride on
> the the alternate universe
> the factory.
>
> He never failed
> to have a spare Budweiser
> and a smoke
> for the short ride to
> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>
> We'd get there in time
> to stand around the parking lot
> and catch a few words
> with the crew.
>
> Then the whistle would blow
> and it was on your mark
> sail through 12 hours of dream
> in another land.
>
> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
> mill coffee
> and then
> in a determined stroll.
>
> Up to the Bobbin Winders
> and the upstairs Reels
> to catch everything up quick
> get the game going right.
>
> Then down the elevator
> to the Spinning room
> sweat shop
> a dozen ladies
> smoking and yelling conversations.
>
> Loud roaring
> antique seeming machinery
> all all points
> no escape from
> the chaos and thunder.
>
> Get it all caught up
> then down to the sub basement
> to pick up the prize left for me
> by Don
> my first shift doppelganger.
>
> Any time Don
> skipped out early
> and left everything
> off the mark, it was no problem.
>
> He'd leave me a joint
> at a certain spot
> in the sub basement.
>
> The basement was
> creepy enough
> but the sub basement
> seemed right out
> of a horror movie.
>
> Needless to say
> I'd keep my head down
> and would try to get out
> of the sub basement quickly.
>
> I had been distributing
> my broadsheets
> among my co-worker friends
> news of the day
> with a twist.
>
> They were entertained
> by my poetry
> and comic strips
> looking for themselves
> in the lines on paper.
>
> Pat, the personnel director
> called me in her office
> and put the kibosh
> on my broadsheet.
>
> My poetry and art zine
> had violated the strict
> "No Distribution" policy
> that no outside reading
> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>
> Since I had not been
> aware of this policy
> I apologized
> and kept the broadsides
> outside the gates from then on.
>
> Absolutely
> no foreknowledge
> of what was coming next
> taking one minute at a time.
>
> Getting from one minute
> to the next
> always in a hurry
> caught up in the time
> flashing by.
>
> Not even giving a damn
> or so I told myself
> by that point in time
> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>
> I never could have foreseen
> twenty years later in 2005
> standing in a crowd
> watching the old mill in flames
>
> I was living
> in the worn out townhouse
> at 3226 River Avenue
> once part of a mill village.
>
> First week of the month
> was always annoying
> so much noise
> as I tried to sleep.
>
> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
> beating on the sides
> of the houses with his cane
> trying to collect his rent money.
>
> Alone
> in my upstairs office
> writing my manifesto
> in poetry and comic strips.
>
> Right side duplex
> next door to the Holden family.
> Two stories overlooking
> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>
> If I had the foresight
> I would know sitting and waiting
> was wasting precious time
> the cruelty of moments.
>
> Time can't be saved
> like in a bank.
> I thought I was biding my time
> while I was losing everything.
>
> As the North Highland
> sun blazed down.
> And as the cool white moon
> seemed to watch over it all.
>
> The big rooms
> and empty house
> suited my mood
> my lonesome and blue.
>
> Looking out my upstairs window
> dabbling on a canvas
> not a clue
> what was to come.
>
> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
> for a beer and some smokes
> the place is long gone now
> 35 years later.
>
> Back then it was
> the general store
> where the locals stood around
> shooting the breeze.
>
> Although relatively close
> the walk was winding
> to get around
> the far side of the factory.
>
> Found a girl named Margo
> she lived
> a few doors down
> from my place.
>
> She said she liked my music
> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
> was The Clash
> but I found her naivete charming.
>
> Took her out and played the game
> but my heart
> just wasn't in it
> I never saw Margo again
> after that night.
>
> At that time all seemed lost
> just goes to show
> I'm not much of a fortune teller
> but kept hope alive.
>
> Many nights seemed like others
> so I trudged
> through the days
> wrote poetry
> through the night.
>
> Crossed my heart
> and looked forward
> to good luck
> and happy days again.
>
> No happy ending
> was expected
> in the foreseeable future
> just more of the same.
>
> -Will Dockery
>
> ------------------------------
> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html

Faraway Star wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>> Passage Through Ennui
>>
>> 35 years ago
>> it was another
>> long bitter Summer
>> that dark humid July 1985.
>>
>> I was working
>> the graveyard shift
>> operating one of the service elevators
>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>
>> Galatea and I
>> had split up again
>> earlier in the year
>> after our explosive reunion
>> in 1983.
>>
>> It ended quickly
>> after a huge fight
>> with her brother
>> over an old score
>> usually forgotten.
>>
>> I won the fight
>> but actually lost.
>> Tracy gave up
>> and Galatea left with him.
>>
>> The year
>> it all came apart
>> seemingly permanent.
>> Two years of good times
>> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>
>> All I could see was
>> a shut down gloom.
>> The only laughter I heard
>> was down in the break room.
>>
>> The brown haze of factory air
>> angry faced people
>> and the music
>> of metal machines.
>>
>> Working all night
>> sleeping all day.
>> Sipping coffee
>> to chase the road aspirins.
>>
>> Sitting on the steps
>> over by a giant fan.
>> keeping up with my workers
>> usually five ladies
>> at the machines.
>>
>> If one of the ladies
>> needed anything
>> they'd just look my way
>> and wave.
>>
>> Several times a night
>> I'd make a buy and fly
>> bringing back coffee for them
>> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>
>> Jotting down notes
>> doodling narratives
>> creating reality
>> building Shadowville
>> from the ground up.
>>
>> Riding my elevator
>> up and down
>> creating samizdat
>> in the smoking booth.
>>
>> Down to the Reel room
>> my elevator filled
>> with empty racks
>> to bring up the full ones
>> for the ladies upstairs.
>>
>> All night
>> keeping it rolling
>> making it smooth
>> for the ladies
>> to make production.
>>
>> Finally to clock out
>> as the sad whistle would blow
>> we would stumble out the gate
>> into the grey dawn.
>>
>> Some headed for breakfast
>> and a beer
>> while always I headed home
>> for sleep
>> as quickly as possible.
>>
>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> where I had shared a trailer
>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>>
>> Bob worked downstairs
>> at the Autoclave
>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> into the yarn.
>>
>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> ran the huge Dryers
>> a super hot
>> chemical steam bath area.
>>
>> Jim married
>> my childhood friend Pamela
>> and passed away too soon
>> from a heart attack
>>
>> I'm not sure how workers
>> down there
>> survived the heat
>> and harsh smell.
>>
>> Actually
>> I noticed not so well
>> as years went by
>> several old friends
>> still haunt me.
>>
>> There was a guy named Bill
>> from Chicago
>> found in the Dryer room
>> coughing up blood from TB.
>>
>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> was found
>> giggling in the warehouse
>> up in the bales of fiber
>> one line of meth too many.
>>
>> Little Rosell
>> on the Reels downstairs
>> hot little femme fatale
>> who I would know better later.
>>
>> An unteresting lady
>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> she was the supervisors' choice.
>>
>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> found in a hallway
>> died there of old age.
>>
>> The list goes on
>> many who did not survive
>> until the shut down day
>> another poem for another day.
>>
>> At that time of the night
>> with machines all running right
>> many of us could wander
>> have some coffee
>> and get some fresh air.
>>
>> Bob was a good friend
>> at the job
>> quick with a joke
>> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>>
>> Many smokers and drinkers
>> would hang out
>> on the porch
>> outside the Autoclave room.
>>
>> When he heard
>> of my latest domestic disaster
>> Bob offered
>> to rent me a room.
>>
>> In a rented room
>> in Bob's trailer
>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> without the laughs.
>>
>> The bottom fell out
>> we didn't get along
>> outside of the job
>> so I moved out
>> to North Highland.
>>
>> I moved in
>> next door to the Holt family
>> old school mill folk
>> in the former mill village.
>>
>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> all worked at
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> like their family before them.
>>
>> Karen worked in the supply room
>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> Don covered my job
>> during the say shift.
>>
>> For some reason
>> it was important to them
>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> that I was their cousin.
>>
>> I never did figure that out
>> but it was cool with me.
>> I liked them all
>> they were down to Earth folks.
>>
>> The day I moved in
>> I had my music playing loud
>> outside my window
>> was the river
>> and then Alabama.
>>
>> I would never have imagined
>> how that area would look now
>> with the row of houses demolished
>> and with the Riverwalk below.
>>
>> I was two floors up
>> but I still felt
>> like a mole
>> like a subterranean.
>>
>> Wake up
>> it was Monday
>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> down below.
>>
>> Billy was an old school
>> Card and Blending room man
>> never late
>> sick or well he was on the job.
>>
>> Slither down the stairs
>> so far so good
>> jump in and ride on
>> the the alternate universe
>> the factory.
>>
>> He never failed
>> to have a spare Budweiser
>> and a smoke
>> for the short ride to
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>
>> We'd get there in time
>> to stand around the parking lot
>> and catch a few words
>> with the crew.
>>
>> Then the whistle would blow
>> and it was on your mark
>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> in another land.
>>
>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> mill coffee
>> and then
>> in a determined stroll.
>>
>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> and the upstairs Reels
>> to catch everything up quick
>> get the game going right.
>>
>> Then down the elevator
>> to the Spinning room
>> sweat shop
>> a dozen ladies
>> smoking and yelling conversations.
>>
>> Loud roaring
>> antique seeming machinery
>> all all points
>> no escape from
>> the chaos and thunder.
>>
>> Get it all caught up
>> then down to the sub basement
>> to pick up the prize left for me
>> by Don
>> my first shift doppelganger.
>>
>> Any time Don
>> skipped out early
>> and left everything
>> off the mark, it was no problem.
>>
>> He'd leave me a joint
>> at a certain spot
>> in the sub basement.
>>
>> The basement was
>> creepy enough
>> but the sub basement
>> seemed right out
>> of a horror movie.
>>
>> Needless to say
>> I'd keep my head down
>> and would try to get out
>> of the sub basement quickly.
>>
>> I had been distributing
>> my broadsheets
>> among my co-worker friends
>> news of the day
>> with a twist.
>>
>> They were entertained
>> by my poetry
>> and comic strips
>> looking for themselves
>> in the lines on paper.
>>
>> Pat, the personnel director
>> called me in her office
>> and put the kibosh
>> on my broadsheet.
>>
>> My poetry and art zine
>> had violated the strict
>> "No Distribution" policy
>> that no outside reading
>> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>>
>> Since I had not been
>> aware of this policy
>> I apologized
>> and kept the broadsides
>> outside the gates from then on.
>>
>> Absolutely
>> no foreknowledge
>> of what was coming next
>> taking one minute at a time.
>>
>> Getting from one minute
>> to the next
>> always in a hurry
>> caught up in the time
>> flashing by.
>>
>> Not even giving a damn
>> or so I told myself
>> by that point in time
>> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>>
>> I never could have foreseen
>> twenty years later in 2005
>> standing in a crowd
>> watching the old mill in flames
>>
>> I was living
>> in the worn out townhouse
>> at 3226 River Avenue
>> once part of a mill village.
>>
>> First week of the month
>> was always annoying
>> so much noise
>> as I tried to sleep.
>>
>> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
>> beating on the sides
>> of the houses with his cane
>> trying to collect his rent money.
>>
>> Alone
>> in my upstairs office
>> writing my manifesto
>> in poetry and comic strips.
>>
>> Right side duplex
>> next door to the Holden family.
>> Two stories overlooking
>> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>>
>> If I had the foresight
>> I would know sitting and waiting
>> was wasting precious time
>> the cruelty of moments.
>>
>> Time can't be saved
>> like in a bank.
>> I thought I was biding my time
>> while I was losing everything.
>>
>> As the North Highland
>> sun blazed down.
>> And as the cool white moon
>> seemed to watch over it all.
>>
>> The big rooms
>> and empty house
>> suited my mood
>> my lonesome and blue.
>>
>> Looking out my upstairs window
>> dabbling on a canvas
>> not a clue
>> what was to come.
>>
>> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
>> for a beer and some smokes
>> the place is long gone now
>> 35 years later.
>>
>> Back then it was
>> the general store
>> where the locals stood around
>> shooting the breeze.
>>
>> Although relatively close
>> the walk was winding
>> to get around
>> the far side of the factory.
>>
>> Found a girl named Margo
>> she lived
>> a few doors down
>> from my place.
>>
>> She said she liked my music
>> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
>> was The Clash
>> but I found her naivete charming.
>>
>> Took her out and played the game
>> but my heart
>> just wasn't in it
>> I never saw Margo again
>> after that night.
>>
>> At that time all seemed lost
>> just goes to show
>> I'm not much of a fortune teller
>> but kept hope alive.
>>
>> Many nights seemed like others
>> so I trudged
>> through the days
>> wrote poetry
>> through the night.
>>
>> Crossed my heart
>> and looked forward
>> to good luck
>> and happy days again.
>>
>> No happy ending
>> was expected
>> in the foreseeable future
>> just more of the same.
>>
>> -Will Dockery
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
>> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>> Passage Through Ennui

>> 35 years ago
>> it was another
>> long bitter Summer
>> that dark humid July 1985.

>> I was working
>> the graveyard shift
>> operating one of the service elevators
>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> Galatea and I
>> had split up again
>> earlier in the year
>> after our explosive reunion
>> in 1983.

>> It ended quickly
>> after a huge fight
>> with her brother
>> over an old score
>> usually forgotten.

>> I won the fight
>> but actually lost.
>> Tracy gave up
>> and Galatea left with him.

>> The year
>> it all came apart
>> seemingly permanent.
>> Two years of good times
>> ended in a moonshine rage. .

>> All I could see was
>> a shut down gloom.
>> The only laughter I heard
>> was down in the break room.

>> The brown haze of factory air
>> angry faced people
>> and the music
>> of metal machines.

>> Working all night
>> sleeping all day.
>> Sipping coffee
>> to chase the road aspirins.

>> Sitting on the steps
>> over by a giant fan.
>> keeping up with my workers
>> usually five ladies
>> at the machines.

>> If one of the ladies
>> needed anything
>> they'd just look my way
>> and wave.

>> Several times a night
>> I'd make a buy and fly
>> bringing back coffee for them
>> on makeshift cardboard trays.

>> Jotting down notes
>> doodling narratives
>> creating reality
>> building Shadowville
>> from the ground up.

>> Riding my elevator
>> up and down
>> creating samizdat
>> in the smoking booth.

>> Down to the Reel room
>> my elevator filled
>> with empty racks
>> to bring up the full ones
>> for the ladies upstairs.

>> All night
>> keeping it rolling
>> making it smooth
>> for the ladies
>> to make production.

>> Finally to clock out
>> as the sad whistle would blow
>> we would stumble out the gate
>> into the grey dawn.

>> Some headed for breakfast
>> and a beer
>> while always I headed home
>> for sleep
>> as quickly as possible.

>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> where I had shared a trailer
>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> an Army vet turned factory worker.

>> Bob worked downstairs
>> at the Autoclave
>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> into the yarn.

>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> ran the huge Dryers
>> a super hot
>> chemical steam bath area.

>> Jim married
>> my childhood friend Pamela
>> and passed away too soon
>> from a heart attack

>> I'm not sure how workers
>> down there
>> survived the heat
>> and harsh smell.

>> Actually
>> I noticed not so well
>> as years went by
>> several old friends
>> still haunt me.

>> There was a guy named Bill
>> from Chicago
>> found in the Dryer room
>> coughing up blood from TB.

>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> was found
>> giggling in the warehouse
>> up in the bales of fiber
>> one line of meth too many.

>> Little Rosell
>> on the Reels downstairs
>> hot little femme fatale
>> who I would know better later.

>> An unteresting lady
>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> she was the supervisors' choice.

>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> found in a hallway
>> died there of old age.

>> The list goes on
>> many who did not survive
>> until the shut down day
>> another poem for another day.

>> At that time of the night
>> with machines all running right
>> many of us could wander
>> have some coffee
>> and get some fresh air.

>> Bob was a good friend
>> at the job
>> quick with a joke
>> or pass his pipe for a toke.

>> Many smokers and drinkers
>> would hang out
>> on the porch
>> outside the Autoclave room.

>> When he heard
>> of my latest domestic disaster
>> Bob offered
>> to rent me a room.

>> In a rented room
>> in Bob's trailer
>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> without the laughs.

>> The bottom fell out
>> we didn't get along
>> outside of the job
>> so I moved out
>> to North Highland.

>> I moved in
>> next door to the Holt family
>> old school mill folk
>> in the former mill village.

>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> all worked at
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> like their family before them.

>> Karen worked in the supply room
>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> Don covered my job
>> during the say shift.

>> For some reason
>> it was important to them
>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> that I was their cousin.

>> I never did figure that out
>> but it was cool with me.
>> I liked them all
>> they were down to Earth folks.

>> The day I moved in
>> I had my music playing loud
>> outside my window
>> was the river
>> and then Alabama.

>> I would never have imagined
>> how that area would look now
>> with the row of houses demolished
>> and with the Riverwalk below.

>> I was two floors up
>> but I still felt
>> like a mole
>> like a subterranean.

>> Wake up
>> it was Monday
>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> down below.

>> Billy was an old school
>> Card and Blending room man
>> never late
>> sick or well he was on the job.

>> Slither down the stairs
>> so far so good
>> jump in and ride on
>> the the alternate universe
>> the factory.

>> He never failed
>> to have a spare Budweiser
>> and a smoke
>> for the short ride to
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> We'd get there in time
>> to stand around the parking lot
>> and catch a few words
>> with the crew.

>> Then the whistle would blow
>> and it was on your mark
>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> in another land.

>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> mill coffee
>> and then
>> in a determined stroll.

>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> and the upstairs Reels
>> to catch everything up quick
>> get the game going right.

>> Then down the elevator
>> to the Spinning room
>> sweat shop
>> a dozen ladies
>> smoking and yelling conversations.

>> Loud roaring
>> antique seeming machinery
>> all all points
>> no escape from
>> the chaos and thunder.

>> Get it all caught up
>> then down to the sub basement
>> to pick up the prize left for me
>> by Don
>> my first shift doppelganger.

>> Any time Don
>> skipped out early
>> and left everything
>> off the mark, it was no problem.

>> He'd leave me a joint
>> at a certain spot
>> in the sub basement.

>> The basement was
>> creepy enough
>> but the sub basement
>> seemed right out
>> of a horror movie.

>> Needless to say
>> I'd keep my head down
>> and would try to get out
>> of the sub basement quickly.

>> I had been distributing
>> my broadsheets
>> among my co-worker friends
>> news of the day
>> with a twist.

>> They were entertained
>> by my poetry
>> and comic strips
>> looking for themselves
>> in the lines on paper.

>> Pat, the personnel director
>> called me in her office
>> and put the kibosh
>> on my broadsheet.

>> My poetry and art zine
>> had violated the strict
>> "No Distribution" policy
>> that no outside reading
>> was permitted inside the mill gates.

>> Since I had not been
>> aware of this policy
>> I apologized
>> and kept the broadsides
>> outside the gates from then on.

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>> Passage Through Ennui

>> 35 years ago
>> it was another
>> long bitter Summer
>> that dark humid July 1985.

>> I was working
>> the graveyard shift
>> operating one of the service elevators
>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> Galatea and I
>> had split up again
>> earlier in the year
>> after our explosive reunion
>> in 1983.

>> It ended quickly
>> after a huge fight
>> with her brother
>> over an old score
>> usually forgotten.

>> I won the fight
>> but actually lost.
>> Tracy gave up
>> and Galatea left with him.

>> The year
>> it all came apart
>> seemingly permanent.
>> Two years of good times
>> ended in a moonshine rage. .

>> All I could see was
>> a shut down gloom.
>> The only laughter I heard
>> was down in the break room.

>> The brown haze of factory air
>> angry faced people
>> and the music
>> of metal machines.

>> Working all night
>> sleeping all day.
>> Sipping coffee
>> to chase the road aspirins.

>> Sitting on the steps
>> over by a giant fan.
>> keeping up with my workers
>> usually five ladies
>> at the machines.

>> If one of the ladies
>> needed anything
>> they'd just look my way
>> and wave.

>> Several times a night
>> I'd make a buy and fly
>> bringing back coffee for them
>> on makeshift cardboard trays.

>> Jotting down notes
>> doodling narratives
>> creating reality
>> building Shadowville
>> from the ground up.

>> Riding my elevator
>> up and down
>> creating samizdat
>> in the smoking booth.

>> Down to the Reel room
>> my elevator filled
>> with empty racks
>> to bring up the full ones
>> for the ladies upstairs.

>> All night
>> keeping it rolling
>> making it smooth
>> for the ladies
>> to make production.

>> Finally to clock out
>> as the sad whistle would blow
>> we would stumble out the gate
>> into the grey dawn.

>> Some headed for breakfast
>> and a beer
>> while always I headed home
>> for sleep
>> as quickly as possible.

>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> where I had shared a trailer
>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> an Army vet turned factory worker.

>> Bob worked downstairs
>> at the Autoclave
>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> into the yarn.

>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> ran the huge Dryers
>> a super hot
>> chemical steam bath area.

>> Jim married
>> my childhood friend Pamela
>> and passed away too soon
>> from a heart attack

>> I'm not sure how workers
>> down there
>> survived the heat
>> and harsh smell.

>> Actually
>> I noticed not so well
>> as years went by
>> several old friends
>> still haunt me.

>> There was a guy named Bill
>> from Chicago
>> found in the Dryer room
>> coughing up blood from TB.

>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> was found
>> giggling in the warehouse
>> up in the bales of fiber
>> one line of meth too many.

>> Little Rosell
>> on the Reels downstairs
>> hot little femme fatale
>> who I would know better later.

>> An unteresting lady
>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> she was the supervisors' choice.

>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> found in a hallway
>> died there of old age.

>> The list goes on
>> many who did not survive
>> until the shut down day
>> another poem for another day.

>> At that time of the night
>> with machines all running right
>> many of us could wander
>> have some coffee
>> and get some fresh air.

>> Bob was a good friend
>> at the job
>> quick with a joke
>> or pass his pipe for a toke.

>> Many smokers and drinkers
>> would hang out
>> on the porch
>> outside the Autoclave room.

>> When he heard
>> of my latest domestic disaster
>> Bob offered
>> to rent me a room.

>> In a rented room
>> in Bob's trailer
>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> without the laughs.

>> The bottom fell out
>> we didn't get along
>> outside of the job
>> so I moved out
>> to North Highland.

>> I moved in
>> next door to the Holt family
>> old school mill folk
>> in the former mill village.

>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> all worked at
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> like their family before them.

>> Karen worked in the supply room
>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> Don covered my job
>> during the say shift.

>> For some reason
>> it was important to them
>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> that I was their cousin.

>> I never did figure that out
>> but it was cool with me.
>> I liked them all
>> they were down to Earth folks.

>> The day I moved in
>> I had my music playing loud
>> outside my window
>> was the river
>> and then Alabama.

>> I would never have imagined
>> how that area would look now
>> with the row of houses demolished
>> and with the Riverwalk below.

>> I was two floors up
>> but I still felt
>> like a mole
>> like a subterranean.

>> Wake up
>> it was Monday
>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> down below.

>> Billy was an old school
>> Card and Blending room man
>> never late
>> sick or well he was on the job.

>> Slither down the stairs
>> so far so good
>> jump in and ride on
>> the the alternate universe
>> the factory.

>> He never failed
>> to have a spare Budweiser
>> and a smoke
>> for the short ride to
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> We'd get there in time
>> to stand around the parking lot
>> and catch a few words
>> with the crew.

>> Then the whistle would blow
>> and it was on your mark
>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> in another land.

>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> mill coffee
>> and then
>> in a determined stroll.

>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> and the upstairs Reels
>> to catch everything up quick
>> get the game going right.

>> Then down the elevator
>> to the Spinning room
>> sweat shop
>> a dozen ladies
>> smoking and yelling conversations.

>> Loud roaring
>> antique seeming machinery
>> all all points
>> no escape from
>> the chaos and thunder.

>> Get it all caught up
>> then down to the sub basement
>> to pick up the prize left for me
>> by Don
>> my first shift doppelganger.

>> Any time Don
>> skipped out early
>> and left everything
>> off the mark, it was no problem.

>> He'd leave me a joint
>> at a certain spot
>> in the sub basement.

>> The basement was
>> creepy enough
>> but the sub basement
>> seemed right out
>> of a horror movie.

>> Needless to say
>> I'd keep my head down
>> and would try to get out
>> of the sub basement quickly.

>> I had been distributing
>> my broadsheets
>> among my co-worker friends
>> news of the day
>> with a twist.

>> They were entertained
>> by my poetry
>> and comic strips
>> looking for themselves
>> in the lines on paper.

>> Pat, the personnel director
>> called me in her office
>> and put the kibosh
>> on my broadsheet.

>> My poetry and art zine
>> had violated the strict
>> "No Distribution" policy
>> that no outside reading
>> was permitted inside the mill gates.

>> Since I had not been
>> aware of this policy
>> I apologized
>> and kept the broadsides
>> outside the gates from then on.

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>> Passage Through Ennui

>> 35 years ago
>> it was another
>> long bitter Summer
>> that dark humid July 1985.

>> I was working
>> the graveyard shift
>> operating one of the service elevators
>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> Galatea and I
>> had split up again
>> earlier in the year
>> after our explosive reunion
>> in 1983.

>> It ended quickly
>> after a huge fight
>> with her brother
>> over an old score
>> usually forgotten.

>> I won the fight
>> but actually lost.
>> Tracy gave up
>> and Galatea left with him.

>> The year
>> it all came apart
>> seemingly permanent.
>> Two years of good times
>> ended in a moonshine rage. .

>> All I could see was
>> a shut down gloom.
>> The only laughter I heard
>> was down in the break room.

>> The brown haze of factory air
>> angry faced people
>> and the music
>> of metal machines.

>> Working all night
>> sleeping all day.
>> Sipping coffee
>> to chase the road aspirins.

>> Sitting on the steps
>> over by a giant fan.
>> keeping up with my workers
>> usually five ladies
>> at the machines.

>> If one of the ladies
>> needed anything
>> they'd just look my way
>> and wave.

>> Several times a night
>> I'd make a buy and fly
>> bringing back coffee for them
>> on makeshift cardboard trays.

>> Jotting down notes
>> doodling narratives
>> creating reality
>> building Shadowville
>> from the ground up.

>> Riding my elevator
>> up and down
>> creating samizdat
>> in the smoking booth.

>> Down to the Reel room
>> my elevator filled
>> with empty racks
>> to bring up the full ones
>> for the ladies upstairs.

>> All night
>> keeping it rolling
>> making it smooth
>> for the ladies
>> to make production.

>> Finally to clock out
>> as the sad whistle would blow
>> we would stumble out the gate
>> into the grey dawn.

>> Some headed for breakfast
>> and a beer
>> while always I headed home
>> for sleep
>> as quickly as possible.

>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> where I had shared a trailer
>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> an Army vet turned factory worker.

>> Bob worked downstairs
>> at the Autoclave
>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> into the yarn.

>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> ran the huge Dryers
>> a super hot
>> chemical steam bath area.

>> Jim married
>> my childhood friend Pamela
>> and passed away too soon
>> from a heart attack

>> I'm not sure how workers
>> down there
>> survived the heat
>> and harsh smell.

>> Actually
>> I noticed not so well
>> as years went by
>> several old friends
>> still haunt me.

>> There was a guy named Bill
>> from Chicago
>> found in the Dryer room
>> coughing up blood from TB.

>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> was found
>> giggling in the warehouse
>> up in the bales of fiber
>> one line of meth too many.

>> Little Rosell
>> on the Reels downstairs
>> hot little femme fatale
>> who I would know better later.

>> An unteresting lady
>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> she was the supervisors' choice.

>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> found in a hallway
>> died there of old age.

>> The list goes on
>> many who did not survive
>> until the shut down day
>> another poem for another day.

>> At that time of the night
>> with machines all running right
>> many of us could wander
>> have some coffee
>> and get some fresh air.

>> Bob was a good friend
>> at the job
>> quick with a joke
>> or pass his pipe for a toke.

>> Many smokers and drinkers
>> would hang out
>> on the porch
>> outside the Autoclave room.

>> When he heard
>> of my latest domestic disaster
>> Bob offered
>> to rent me a room.

>> In a rented room
>> in Bob's trailer
>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> without the laughs.

>> The bottom fell out
>> we didn't get along
>> outside of the job
>> so I moved out
>> to North Highland.

>> I moved in
>> next door to the Holt family
>> old school mill folk
>> in the former mill village.

>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> all worked at
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> like their family before them.

>> Karen worked in the supply room
>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> Don covered my job
>> during the say shift.

>> For some reason
>> it was important to them
>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> that I was their cousin.

>> I never did figure that out
>> but it was cool with me.
>> I liked them all
>> they were down to Earth folks.

>> The day I moved in
>> I had my music playing loud
>> outside my window
>> was the river
>> and then Alabama.

>> I would never have imagined
>> how that area would look now
>> with the row of houses demolished
>> and with the Riverwalk below.

>> I was two floors up
>> but I still felt
>> like a mole
>> like a subterranean.

>> Wake up
>> it was Monday
>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> down below.

>> Billy was an old school
>> Card and Blending room man
>> never late
>> sick or well he was on the job.

>> Slither down the stairs
>> so far so good
>> jump in and ride on
>> the the alternate universe
>> the factory.

>> He never failed
>> to have a spare Budweiser
>> and a smoke
>> for the short ride to
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> We'd get there in time
>> to stand around the parking lot
>> and catch a few words
>> with the crew.

>> Then the whistle would blow
>> and it was on your mark
>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> in another land.

>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> mill coffee
>> and then
>> in a determined stroll.

>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> and the upstairs Reels
>> to catch everything up quick
>> get the game going right.

>> Then down the elevator
>> to the Spinning room
>> sweat shop
>> a dozen ladies
>> smoking and yelling conversations.

>> Loud roaring
>> antique seeming machinery
>> all all points
>> no escape from
>> the chaos and thunder.

>> Get it all caught up
>> then down to the sub basement
>> to pick up the prize left for me
>> by Don
>> my first shift doppelganger.

>> Any time Don
>> skipped out early
>> and left everything
>> off the mark, it was no problem.

>> He'd leave me a joint
>> at a certain spot
>> in the sub basement.

>> The basement was
>> creepy enough
>> but the sub basement
>> seemed right out
>> of a horror movie.

>> Needless to say
>> I'd keep my head down
>> and would try to get out
>> of the sub basement quickly.

>> I had been distributing
>> my broadsheets
>> among my co-worker friends
>> news of the day
>> with a twist.

>> They were entertained
>> by my poetry
>> and comic strips
>> looking for themselves
>> in the lines on paper.

>> Pat, the personnel director
>> called me in her office
>> and put the kibosh
>> on my broadsheet.

>> My poetry and art zine
>> had violated the strict
>> "No Distribution" policy
>> that no outside reading
>> was permitted inside the mill gates.

>> Since I had not been
>> aware of this policy
>> I apologized
>> and kept the broadsides
>> outside the gates from then on.

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>> Passage Through Ennui

>> 35 years ago
>> it was another
>> long bitter Summer
>> that dark humid July 1985.

>> I was working
>> the graveyard shift
>> operating one of the service elevators
>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> Galatea and I
>> had split up again
>> earlier in the year
>> after our explosive reunion
>> in 1983.

>> It ended quickly
>> after a huge fight
>> with her brother
>> over an old score
>> usually forgotten.

>> I won the fight
>> but actually lost.
>> Tracy gave up
>> and Galatea left with him.

>> The year
>> it all came apart
>> seemingly permanent.
>> Two years of good times
>> ended in a moonshine rage. .

>> All I could see was
>> a shut down gloom.
>> The only laughter I heard
>> was down in the break room.

>> The brown haze of factory air
>> angry faced people
>> and the music
>> of metal machines.

>> Working all night
>> sleeping all day.
>> Sipping coffee
>> to chase the road aspirins.

>> Sitting on the steps
>> over by a giant fan.
>> keeping up with my workers
>> usually five ladies
>> at the machines.

>> If one of the ladies
>> needed anything
>> they'd just look my way
>> and wave.

>> Several times a night
>> I'd make a buy and fly
>> bringing back coffee for them
>> on makeshift cardboard trays.

>> Jotting down notes
>> doodling narratives
>> creating reality
>> building Shadowville
>> from the ground up.

>> Riding my elevator
>> up and down
>> creating samizdat
>> in the smoking booth.

>> Down to the Reel room
>> my elevator filled
>> with empty racks
>> to bring up the full ones
>> for the ladies upstairs.

>> All night
>> keeping it rolling
>> making it smooth
>> for the ladies
>> to make production.

>> Finally to clock out
>> as the sad whistle would blow
>> we would stumble out the gate
>> into the grey dawn.

>> Some headed for breakfast
>> and a beer
>> while always I headed home
>> for sleep
>> as quickly as possible.

>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> where I had shared a trailer
>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> an Army vet turned factory worker.

>> Bob worked downstairs
>> at the Autoclave
>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> into the yarn.

>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> ran the huge Dryers
>> a super hot
>> chemical steam bath area.

>> Jim married
>> my childhood friend Pamela
>> and passed away too soon
>> from a heart attack

>> I'm not sure how workers
>> down there
>> survived the heat
>> and harsh smell.

>> Actually
>> I noticed not so well
>> as years went by
>> several old friends
>> still haunt me.

>> There was a guy named Bill
>> from Chicago
>> found in the Dryer room
>> coughing up blood from TB.

>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> was found
>> giggling in the warehouse
>> up in the bales of fiber
>> one line of meth too many.

>> Little Rosell
>> on the Reels downstairs
>> hot little femme fatale
>> who I would know better later.

>> An unteresting lady
>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> she was the supervisors' choice.

>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> found in a hallway
>> died there of old age.

>> The list goes on
>> many who did not survive
>> until the shut down day
>> another poem for another day.

>> At that time of the night
>> with machines all running right
>> many of us could wander
>> have some coffee
>> and get some fresh air.

>> Bob was a good friend
>> at the job
>> quick with a joke
>> or pass his pipe for a toke.

>> Many smokers and drinkers
>> would hang out
>> on the porch
>> outside the Autoclave room.

>> When he heard
>> of my latest domestic disaster
>> Bob offered
>> to rent me a room.

>> In a rented room
>> in Bob's trailer
>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> without the laughs.

>> The bottom fell out
>> we didn't get along
>> outside of the job
>> so I moved out
>> to North Highland.

>> I moved in
>> next door to the Holt family
>> old school mill folk
>> in the former mill village.

>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> all worked at
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> like their family before them.

>> Karen worked in the supply room
>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> Don covered my job
>> during the say shift.

>> For some reason
>> it was important to them
>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> that I was their cousin.

>> I never did figure that out
>> but it was cool with me.
>> I liked them all
>> they were down to Earth folks.

>> The day I moved in
>> I had my music playing loud
>> outside my window
>> was the river
>> and then Alabama.

>> I would never have imagined
>> how that area would look now
>> with the row of houses demolished
>> and with the Riverwalk below.

>> I was two floors up
>> but I still felt
>> like a mole
>> like a subterranean.

>> Wake up
>> it was Monday
>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> down below.

>> Billy was an old school
>> Card and Blending room man
>> never late
>> sick or well he was on the job.

>> Slither down the stairs
>> so far so good
>> jump in and ride on
>> the the alternate universe
>> the factory.

>> He never failed
>> to have a spare Budweiser
>> and a smoke
>> for the short ride to
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> We'd get there in time
>> to stand around the parking lot
>> and catch a few words
>> with the crew.

>> Then the whistle would blow
>> and it was on your mark
>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> in another land.

>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> mill coffee
>> and then
>> in a determined stroll.

>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> and the upstairs Reels
>> to catch everything up quick
>> get the game going right.

>> Then down the elevator
>> to the Spinning room
>> sweat shop
>> a dozen ladies
>> smoking and yelling conversations.

>> Loud roaring
>> antique seeming machinery
>> all all points
>> no escape from
>> the chaos and thunder.

>> Get it all caught up
>> then down to the sub basement
>> to pick up the prize left for me
>> by Don
>> my first shift doppelganger.

>> Any time Don
>> skipped out early
>> and left everything
>> off the mark, it was no problem.

>> He'd leave me a joint
>> at a certain spot
>> in the sub basement.

>> The basement was
>> creepy enough
>> but the sub basement
>> seemed right out
>> of a horror movie.

>> Needless to say
>> I'd keep my head down
>> and would try to get out
>> of the sub basement quickly.

>> I had been distributing
>> my broadsheets
>> among my co-worker friends
>> news of the day
>> with a twist.

>> They were entertained
>> by my poetry
>> and comic strips
>> looking for themselves
>> in the lines on paper.

>> Pat, the personnel director
>> called me in her office
>> and put the kibosh
>> on my broadsheet.

>> My poetry and art zine
>> had violated the strict
>> "No Distribution" policy
>> that no outside reading
>> was permitted inside the mill gates.

>> Since I had not been
>> aware of this policy
>> I apologized
>> and kept the broadsides
>> outside the gates from then on.

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>> Passage Through Ennui

>> 35 years ago
>> it was another
>> long bitter Summer
>> that dark humid July 1985.

>> I was working
>> the graveyard shift
>> operating one of the service elevators
>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> Galatea and I
>> had split up again
>> earlier in the year
>> after our explosive reunion
>> in 1983.

>> It ended quickly
>> after a huge fight
>> with her brother
>> over an old score
>> usually forgotten.

>> I won the fight
>> but actually lost.
>> Tracy gave up
>> and Galatea left with him.

>> The year
>> it all came apart
>> seemingly permanent.
>> Two years of good times
>> ended in a moonshine rage. .

>> All I could see was
>> a shut down gloom.
>> The only laughter I heard
>> was down in the break room.

>> The brown haze of factory air
>> angry faced people
>> and the music
>> of metal machines.

>> Working all night
>> sleeping all day.
>> Sipping coffee
>> to chase the road aspirins.

>> Sitting on the steps
>> over by a giant fan.
>> keeping up with my workers
>> usually five ladies
>> at the machines.

>> If one of the ladies
>> needed anything
>> they'd just look my way
>> and wave.

>> Several times a night
>> I'd make a buy and fly
>> bringing back coffee for them
>> on makeshift cardboard trays.

>> Jotting down notes
>> doodling narratives
>> creating reality
>> building Shadowville
>> from the ground up.

>> Riding my elevator
>> up and down
>> creating samizdat
>> in the smoking booth.

>> Down to the Reel room
>> my elevator filled
>> with empty racks
>> to bring up the full ones
>> for the ladies upstairs.

>> All night
>> keeping it rolling
>> making it smooth
>> for the ladies
>> to make production.

>> Finally to clock out
>> as the sad whistle would blow
>> we would stumble out the gate
>> into the grey dawn.

>> Some headed for breakfast
>> and a beer
>> while always I headed home
>> for sleep
>> as quickly as possible.

>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> where I had shared a trailer
>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> an Army vet turned factory worker.

>> Bob worked downstairs
>> at the Autoclave
>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> into the yarn.

>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> ran the huge Dryers
>> a super hot
>> chemical steam bath area.

>> Jim married
>> my childhood friend Pamela
>> and passed away too soon
>> from a heart attack

>> I'm not sure how workers
>> down there
>> survived the heat
>> and harsh smell.

>> Actually
>> I noticed not so well
>> as years went by
>> several old friends
>> still haunt me.

>> There was a guy named Bill
>> from Chicago
>> found in the Dryer room
>> coughing up blood from TB.

>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> was found
>> giggling in the warehouse
>> up in the bales of fiber
>> one line of meth too many.

>> Little Rosell
>> on the Reels downstairs
>> hot little femme fatale
>> who I would know better later.

>> An unteresting lady
>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> she was the supervisors' choice.

>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> found in a hallway
>> died there of old age.

>> The list goes on
>> many who did not survive
>> until the shut down day
>> another poem for another day.

>> At that time of the night
>> with machines all running right
>> many of us could wander
>> have some coffee
>> and get some fresh air.

>> Bob was a good friend
>> at the job
>> quick with a joke
>> or pass his pipe for a toke.

>> Many smokers and drinkers
>> would hang out
>> on the porch
>> outside the Autoclave room.

>> When he heard
>> of my latest domestic disaster
>> Bob offered
>> to rent me a room.

>> In a rented room
>> in Bob's trailer
>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> without the laughs.

>> The bottom fell out
>> we didn't get along
>> outside of the job
>> so I moved out
>> to North Highland.

>> I moved in
>> next door to the Holt family
>> old school mill folk
>> in the former mill village.

>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> all worked at
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> like their family before them.

>> Karen worked in the supply room
>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> Don covered my job
>> during the say shift.

>> For some reason
>> it was important to them
>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> that I was their cousin.

>> I never did figure that out
>> but it was cool with me.
>> I liked them all
>> they were down to Earth folks.

>> The day I moved in
>> I had my music playing loud
>> outside my window
>> was the river
>> and then Alabama.

>> I would never have imagined
>> how that area would look now
>> with the row of houses demolished
>> and with the Riverwalk below.

>> I was two floors up
>> but I still felt
>> like a mole
>> like a subterranean.

>> Wake up
>> it was Monday
>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> down below.

>> Billy was an old school
>> Card and Blending room man
>> never late
>> sick or well he was on the job.

>> Slither down the stairs
>> so far so good
>> jump in and ride on
>> the the alternate universe
>> the factory.

>> He never failed
>> to have a spare Budweiser
>> and a smoke
>> for the short ride to
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> We'd get there in time
>> to stand around the parking lot
>> and catch a few words
>> with the crew.

>> Then the whistle would blow
>> and it was on your mark
>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> in another land.

>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> mill coffee
>> and then
>> in a determined stroll.

>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> and the upstairs Reels
>> to catch everything up quick
>> get the game going right.

>> Then down the elevator
>> to the Spinning room
>> sweat shop
>> a dozen ladies
>> smoking and yelling conversations.

>> Loud roaring
>> antique seeming machinery
>> all all points
>> no escape from
>> the chaos and thunder.

>> Get it all caught up
>> then down to the sub basement
>> to pick up the prize left for me
>> by Don
>> my first shift doppelganger.

>> Any time Don
>> skipped out early
>> and left everything
>> off the mark, it was no problem.

>> He'd leave me a joint
>> at a certain spot
>> in the sub basement.

>> The basement was
>> creepy enough
>> but the sub basement
>> seemed right out
>> of a horror movie.

>> Needless to say
>> I'd keep my head down
>> and would try to get out
>> of the sub basement quickly.

>> I had been distributing
>> my broadsheets
>> among my co-worker friends
>> news of the day
>> with a twist.

>> They were entertained
>> by my poetry
>> and comic strips
>> looking for themselves
>> in the lines on paper.

>> Pat, the personnel director
>> called me in her office
>> and put the kibosh
>> on my broadsheet.

>> My poetry and art zine
>> had violated the strict
>> "No Distribution" policy
>> that no outside reading
>> was permitted inside the mill gates.

>> Since I had not been
>> aware of this policy
>> I apologized
>> and kept the broadsides
>> outside the gates from then on.

Will Dockery wrote:
> General-Zod wrote:
>
> > Will Dockery wrote:
> >>
> >> Passage Through Ennui
>
> >> 35 years ago
> >> it was another
> >> long bitter Summer
> >> that dark humid July 1985.
>
> >> I was working
> >> the graveyard shift
> >> operating one of the service elevators
> >> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>
> >> Galatea and I
> >> had split up again
> >> earlier in the year
> >> after our explosive reunion
> >> in 1983.
>
> >> It ended quickly
> >> after a huge fight
> >> with her brother
> >> over an old score
> >> usually forgotten.
>
> >> I won the fight
> >> but actually lost.
> >> Tracy gave up
> >> and Galatea left with him.
>
> >> The year
> >> it all came apart
> >> seemingly permanent.
> >> Two years of good times
> >> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>
> >> All I could see was
> >> a shut down gloom.
> >> The only laughter I heard
> >> was down in the break room.
>
> >> The brown haze of factory air
> >> angry faced people
> >> and the music
> >> of metal machines.
>
> >> Working all night
> >> sleeping all day.
> >> Sipping coffee
> >> to chase the road aspirins.
>
> >> Sitting on the steps
> >> over by a giant fan.
> >> keeping up with my workers
> >> usually five ladies
> >> at the machines.
>
> >> If one of the ladies
> >> needed anything
> >> they'd just look my way
> >> and wave.
>
> >> Several times a night
> >> I'd make a buy and fly
> >> bringing back coffee for them
> >> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>
> >> Jotting down notes
> >> doodling narratives
> >> creating reality
> >> building Shadowville
> >> from the ground up.
>
> >> Riding my elevator
> >> up and down
> >> creating samizdat
> >> in the smoking booth.
>
> >> Down to the Reel room
> >> my elevator filled
> >> with empty racks
> >> to bring up the full ones
> >> for the ladies upstairs.
>
> >> All night
> >> keeping it rolling
> >> making it smooth
> >> for the ladies
> >> to make production.
>
> >> Finally to clock out
> >> as the sad whistle would blow
> >> we would stumble out the gate
> >> into the grey dawn.
>
> >> Some headed for breakfast
> >> and a beer
> >> while always I headed home
> >> for sleep
> >> as quickly as possible.
>
> >> Living at Mockingbird Court
> >> where I had shared a trailer
> >> with my friend Bob Whitman
> >> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>
> >> Bob worked downstairs
> >> at the Autoclave
> >> the machine that steamed chemicals
> >> into the yarn.
>
> >> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
> >> ran the huge Dryers
> >> a super hot
> >> chemical steam bath area.
>
> >> Jim married
> >> my childhood friend Pamela
> >> and passed away too soon
> >> from a heart attack
>
> >> I'm not sure how workers
> >> down there
> >> survived the heat
> >> and harsh smell.
>
> >> Actually
> >> I noticed not so well
> >> as years went by
> >> several old friends
> >> still haunt me.
>
> >> There was a guy named Bill
> >> from Chicago
> >> found in the Dryer room
> >> coughing up blood from TB.
>
> >> Chip, another Autoclave man
> >> was found
> >> giggling in the warehouse
> >> up in the bales of fiber
> >> one line of meth too many.
>
> >> Little Rosell
> >> on the Reels downstairs
> >> hot little femme fatale
> >> who I would know better later.
>
> >> An unteresting lady
> >> in her Daisy Duke shorts
> >> and "Flashdance" shirt
> >> she was the supervisors' choice.
>
> >> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
> >> found in a hallway
> >> died there of old age.
>
> >> The list goes on
> >> many who did not survive
> >> until the shut down day
> >> another poem for another day.
>
> >> At that time of the night
> >> with machines all running right
> >> many of us could wander
> >> have some coffee
> >> and get some fresh air.
>
> >> Bob was a good friend
> >> at the job
> >> quick with a joke
> >> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>
> >> Many smokers and drinkers
> >> would hang out
> >> on the porch
> >> outside the Autoclave room.
>
> >> When he heard
> >> of my latest domestic disaster
> >> Bob offered
> >> to rent me a room.
>
> >> In a rented room
> >> in Bob's trailer
> >> like a scene from The Odd Couple
> >> without the laughs.
>
> >> The bottom fell out
> >> we didn't get along
> >> outside of the job
> >> so I moved out
> >> to North Highland.
>
> >> I moved in
> >> next door to the Holt family
> >> old school mill folk
> >> in the former mill village.
>
> >> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
> >> all worked at
> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill
> >> like their family before them.
>
> >> Karen worked in the supply room
> >> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
> >> Don covered my job
> >> during the say shift.
>
> >> For some reason
> >> it was important to them
> >> that they tell Mr. Newberry
> >> that I was their cousin.
>
> >> I never did figure that out
> >> but it was cool with me.
> >> I liked them all
> >> they were down to Earth folks.
>
> >> The day I moved in
> >> I had my music playing loud
> >> outside my window
> >> was the river
> >> and then Alabama.
>
> >> I would never have imagined
> >> how that area would look now
> >> with the row of houses demolished
> >> and with the Riverwalk below.
>
> >> I was two floors up
> >> but I still felt
> >> like a mole
> >> like a subterranean.
>
> >> Wake up
> >> it was Monday
> >> I could hear Billy Teakson
> >> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
> >> down below.
>
> >> Billy was an old school
> >> Card and Blending room man
> >> never late
> >> sick or well he was on the job.
>
> >> Slither down the stairs
> >> so far so good
> >> jump in and ride on
> >> the the alternate universe
> >> the factory.
>
> >> He never failed
> >> to have a spare Budweiser
> >> and a smoke
> >> for the short ride to
> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>
> >> We'd get there in time
> >> to stand around the parking lot
> >> and catch a few words
> >> with the crew.
>
> >> Then the whistle would blow
> >> and it was on your mark
> >> sail through 12 hours of dream
> >> in another land.
>
> >> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
> >> mill coffee
> >> and then
> >> in a determined stroll.
>
> >> Up to the Bobbin Winders
> >> and the upstairs Reels
> >> to catch everything up quick
> >> get the game going right.
>
> >> Then down the elevator
> >> to the Spinning room
> >> sweat shop
> >> a dozen ladies
> >> smoking and yelling conversations.
>
> >> Loud roaring
> >> antique seeming machinery
> >> all all points
> >> no escape from
> >> the chaos and thunder.
>
> >> Get it all caught up
> >> then down to the sub basement
> >> to pick up the prize left for me
> >> by Don
> >> my first shift doppelganger.
>
> >> Any time Don
> >> skipped out early
> >> and left everything
> >> off the mark, it was no problem.
>
> >> He'd leave me a joint
> >> at a certain spot
> >> in the sub basement.
>
> >> The basement was
> >> creepy enough
> >> but the sub basement
> >> seemed right out
> >> of a horror movie.
>
> >> Needless to say
> >> I'd keep my head down
> >> and would try to get out
> >> of the sub basement quickly.
>
> >> I had been distributing
> >> my broadsheets
> >> among my co-worker friends
> >> news of the day
> >> with a twist.
>
> >> They were entertained
> >> by my poetry
> >> and comic strips
> >> looking for themselves
> >> in the lines on paper.
>
> >> Pat, the personnel director
> >> called me in her office
> >> and put the kibosh
> >> on my broadsheet.
>
> >> My poetry and art zine
> >> had violated the strict
> >> "No Distribution" policy
> >> that no outside reading
> >> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>
> >> Since I had not been
> >> aware of this policy
> >> I apologized
> >> and kept the broadsides
> >> outside the gates from then on.
>
> >> Absolutely
> >> no foreknowledge
> >> of what was coming next
> >> taking one minute at a time.
>
> >> Getting from one minute
> >> to the next
> >> always in a hurry
> >> caught up in the time
> >> flashing by.
>
> >> Not even giving a damn
> >> or so I told myself
> >> by that point in time
> >> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>
> >> I never could have foreseen
> >> twenty years later in 2005
> >> standing in a crowd
> >> watching the old mill in flames
>
> >> I was living
> >> in the worn out townhouse
> >> at 3226 River Avenue
> >> once part of a mill village.
>
> >> First week of the month
> >> was always annoying
> >> so much noise
> >> as I tried to sleep.
>
> >> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
> >> beating on the sides
> >> of the houses with his cane
> >> trying to collect his rent money.
>
> >> Alone
> >> in my upstairs office
> >> writing my manifesto
> >> in poetry and comic strips.
>
> >> Right side duplex
> >> next door to the Holden family.
> >> Two stories overlooking
> >> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>
> >> If I had the foresight
> >> I would know sitting and waiting
> >> was wasting precious time
> >> the cruelty of moments.
>
> >> Time can't be saved
> >> like in a bank.
> >> I thought I was biding my time
> >> while I was losing everything.
>
> >> As the North Highland
> >> sun blazed down.
> >> And as the cool white moon
> >> seemed to watch over it all.
>
> >> The big rooms
> >> and empty house
> >> suited my mood
> >> my lonesome and blue.
>
> >> Looking out my upstairs window
> >> dabbling on a canvas
> >> not a clue
> >> what was to come.
>
> >> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
> >> for a beer and some smokes
> >> the place is long gone now
> >> 35 years later.
>
> >> Back then it was
> >> the general store
> >> where the locals stood around
> >> shooting the breeze.
>
> >> Although relatively close
> >> the walk was winding
> >> to get around
> >> the far side of the factory.
>
> >> Found a girl named Margo
> >> she lived
> >> a few doors down
> >> from my place.
>
> >> She said she liked my music
> >> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
> >> was The Clash
> >> but I found her naivete charming.
>
> >> Took her out and played the game
> >> but my heart
> >> just wasn't in it
> >> I never saw Margo again
> >> after that night.
>
> >> At that time all seemed lost
> >> just goes to show
> >> I'm not much of a fortune teller
> >> but kept hope alive.
>
> >> Many nights seemed like others
> >> so I trudged
> >> through the days
> >> wrote poetry
> >> through the night.
>
> >> Crossed my heart
> >> and looked forward
> >> to good luck
> >> and happy days again.
>
> >> No happy ending
> >> was expected
> >> in the foreseeable future
> >> just more of the same.
>
> >> -Will Dockery
>
> >> ------------------------------
> >> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
> >> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html
>
> >> ***
>
>
> > Outstanding narrative/confessional poetry offering today....
> Thanks again, Zod, although the resident trolls NancyGene and Pendragon will no doubt disagree.

Will Dockery wrote:
>
> Passage Through Ennui

> 35 years ago
> it was another
> long bitter Summer
> that dark humid July 1985.

> I was working
> the graveyard shift
> operating one of the service elevators
> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.

> Galatea and I
> had split up again
> earlier in the year
> after our explosive reunion
> in 1983.

> It ended quickly
> after a huge fight
> with her brother
> over an old score
> usually forgotten.

> I won the fight
> but actually lost.
> Tracy gave up
> and Galatea left with him.

> The year
> it all came apart
> seemingly permanent.
> Two years of good times
> ended in a moonshine rage. .

> All I could see was
> a shut down gloom.
> The only laughter I heard
> was down in the break room.

> The brown haze of factory air
> angry faced people
> and the music
> of metal machines.

> Working all night
> sleeping all day.
> Sipping coffee
> to chase the road aspirins.

> Sitting on the steps
> over by a giant fan.
> keeping up with my workers
> usually five ladies
> at the machines.

> If one of the ladies
> needed anything
> they'd just look my way
> and wave.

> Several times a night
> I'd make a buy and fly
> bringing back coffee for them
> on makeshift cardboard trays.

> Jotting down notes
> doodling narratives
> creating reality
> building Shadowville
> from the ground up.

> Riding my elevator
> up and down
> creating samizdat
> in the smoking booth.

> Down to the Reel room
> my elevator filled
> with empty racks
> to bring up the full ones
> for the ladies upstairs.

> All night
> keeping it rolling
> making it smooth
> for the ladies
> to make production.

> Finally to clock out
> as the sad whistle would blow
> we would stumble out the gate
> into the grey dawn.

> Some headed for breakfast
> and a beer
> while always I headed home
> for sleep
> as quickly as possible.

> Living at Mockingbird Court
> where I had shared a trailer
> with my friend Bob Whitman
> an Army vet turned factory worker.

> Bob worked downstairs
> at the Autoclave
> the machine that steamed chemicals
> into the yarn.

> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
> ran the huge Dryers
> a super hot
> chemical steam bath area.

> Jim married
> my childhood friend Pamela
> and passed away too soon
> from a heart attack

> I'm not sure how workers
> down there
> survived the heat
> and harsh smell.

> Actually
> I noticed not so well
> as years went by
> several old friends
> still haunt me.

> There was a guy named Bill
> from Chicago
> found in the Dryer room
> coughing up blood from TB.

> Chip, another Autoclave man
> was found
> giggling in the warehouse
> up in the bales of fiber
> one line of meth too many.

> Little Rosell
> on the Reels downstairs
> hot little femme fatale
> who I would know better later.

> An unteresting lady
> in her Daisy Duke shorts
> and "Flashdance" shirt
> she was the supervisors' choice.

> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
> found in a hallway
> died there of old age.

> The list goes on
> many who did not survive
> until the shut down day
> another poem for another day.

> At that time of the night
> with machines all running right
> many of us could wander
> have some coffee
> and get some fresh air.

> Bob was a good friend
> at the job
> quick with a joke
> or pass his pipe for a toke.

> Many smokers and drinkers
> would hang out
> on the porch
> outside the Autoclave room.

> When he heard
> of my latest domestic disaster
> Bob offered
> to rent me a room.

> In a rented room
> in Bob's trailer
> like a scene from The Odd Couple
> without the laughs.

> The bottom fell out
> we didn't get along
> outside of the job
> so I moved out
> to North Highland.

> I moved in
> next door to the Holt family
> old school mill folk
> in the former mill village.

> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
> all worked at
> Shadowville Spinning Mill
> like their family before them.

> Karen worked in the supply room
> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
> Don covered my job
> during the say shift.

> For some reason
> it was important to them
> that they tell Mr. Newberry
> that I was their cousin.

> I never did figure that out
> but it was cool with me.
> I liked them all
> they were down to Earth folks.

> The day I moved in
> I had my music playing loud
> outside my window
> was the river
> and then Alabama.

> I would never have imagined
> how that area would look now
> with the row of houses demolished
> and with the Riverwalk below.

> I was two floors up
> but I still felt
> like a mole
> like a subterranean.

> Wake up
> it was Monday
> I could hear Billy Teakson
> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
> down below.

> Billy was an old school
> Card and Blending room man
> never late
> sick or well he was on the job.

> Slither down the stairs
> so far so good
> jump in and ride on
> the the alternate universe
> the factory.

> He never failed
> to have a spare Budweiser
> and a smoke
> for the short ride to
> Shadowville Spinning Mill.

> We'd get there in time
> to stand around the parking lot
> and catch a few words
> with the crew.

> Then the whistle would blow
> and it was on your mark
> sail through 12 hours of dream
> in another land.

> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
> mill coffee
> and then
> in a determined stroll.

> Up to the Bobbin Winders
> and the upstairs Reels
> to catch everything up quick
> get the game going right.

> Then down the elevator
> to the Spinning room
> sweat shop
> a dozen ladies
> smoking and yelling conversations.

> Loud roaring
> antique seeming machinery
> all all points
> no escape from
> the chaos and thunder.

> Get it all caught up
> then down to the sub basement
> to pick up the prize left for me
> by Don
> my first shift doppelganger.

> Any time Don
> skipped out early
> and left everything
> off the mark, it was no problem.

> He'd leave me a joint
> at a certain spot
> in the sub basement.

> The basement was
> creepy enough
> but the sub basement
> seemed right out
> of a horror movie.

> Needless to say
> I'd keep my head down
> and would try to get out
> of the sub basement quickly.

> I had been distributing
> my broadsheets
> among my co-worker friends
> news of the day
> with a twist.

> They were entertained
> by my poetry
> and comic strips
> looking for themselves
> in the lines on paper.

> Pat, the personnel director
> called me in her office
> and put the kibosh
> on my broadsheet.

> My poetry and art zine
> had violated the strict
> "No Distribution" policy
> that no outside reading
> was permitted inside the mill gates.

> Since I had not been
> aware of this policy
> I apologized
> and kept the broadsides
> outside the gates from then on.

> Absolutely
> no foreknowledge
> of what was coming next
> taking one minute at a time.

> Getting from one minute
> to the next
> always in a hurry
> caught up in the time
> flashing by.

> Not even giving a damn
> or so I told myself
> by that point in time
> hoping for a speedy turnabout.

> I never could have foreseen
> twenty years later in 2005
> standing in a crowd
> watching the old mill in flames

> I was living
> in the worn out townhouse
> at 3226 River Avenue
> once part of a mill village.

> First week of the month
> was always annoying
> so much noise
> as I tried to sleep.

> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
> beating on the sides
> of the houses with his cane
> trying to collect his rent money.

> Alone
> in my upstairs office
> writing my manifesto
> in poetry and comic strips.

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>> Passage Through Ennui
>> 35 years ago
>> it was another
>> long bitter Summer
>> that dark humid July 1985.

>> I was working
>> the graveyard shift
>> operating one of the service elevators
>> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> Galatea and I
>> had split up again
>> earlier in the year
>> after our explosive reunion
>> in 1983.

>> It ended quickly
>> after a huge fight
>> with her brother
>> over an old score
>> usually forgotten.

>> I won the fight
>> but actually lost.
>> Tracy gave up
>> and Galatea left with him.

>> The year
>> it all came apart
>> seemingly permanent.
>> Two years of good times
>> ended in a moonshine rage. .

>> All I could see was
>> a shut down gloom.
>> The only laughter I heard
>> was down in the break room.

>> The brown haze of factory air
>> angry faced people
>> and the music
>> of metal machines.

>> Working all night
>> sleeping all day.
>> Sipping coffee
>> to chase the road aspirins.

>> Sitting on the steps
>> over by a giant fan.
>> keeping up with my workers
>> usually five ladies
>> at the machines.

>> If one of the ladies
>> needed anything
>> they'd just look my way
>> and wave.

>> Several times a night
>> I'd make a buy and fly
>> bringing back coffee for them
>> on makeshift cardboard trays.

>> Jotting down notes
>> doodling narratives
>> creating reality
>> building Shadowville
>> from the ground up.

>> Riding my elevator
>> up and down
>> creating samizdat
>> in the smoking booth.

>> Down to the Reel room
>> my elevator filled
>> with empty racks
>> to bring up the full ones
>> for the ladies upstairs.

>> All night
>> keeping it rolling
>> making it smooth
>> for the ladies
>> to make production.

>> Finally to clock out
>> as the sad whistle would blow
>> we would stumble out the gate
>> into the grey dawn.

>> Some headed for breakfast
>> and a beer
>> while always I headed home
>> for sleep
>> as quickly as possible.

>> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> where I had shared a trailer
>> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> an Army vet turned factory worker.

>> Bob worked downstairs
>> at the Autoclave
>> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> into the yarn.

>> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> ran the huge Dryers
>> a super hot
>> chemical steam bath area.

>> Jim married
>> my childhood friend Pamela
>> and passed away too soon
>> from a heart attack

>> I'm not sure how workers
>> down there
>> survived the heat
>> and harsh smell.

>> Actually
>> I noticed not so well
>> as years went by
>> several old friends
>> still haunt me.

>> There was a guy named Bill
>> from Chicago
>> found in the Dryer room
>> coughing up blood from TB.

>> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> was found
>> giggling in the warehouse
>> up in the bales of fiber
>> one line of meth too many.

>> Little Rosell
>> on the Reels downstairs
>> hot little femme fatale
>> who I would know better later.

>> An unteresting lady
>> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> she was the supervisors' choice.

>> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> found in a hallway
>> died there of old age.

>> The list goes on
>> many who did not survive
>> until the shut down day
>> another poem for another day.

>> At that time of the night
>> with machines all running right
>> many of us could wander
>> have some coffee
>> and get some fresh air.

>> Bob was a good friend
>> at the job
>> quick with a joke
>> or pass his pipe for a toke.

>> Many smokers and drinkers
>> would hang out
>> on the porch
>> outside the Autoclave room.

>> When he heard
>> of my latest domestic disaster
>> Bob offered
>> to rent me a room.

>> In a rented room
>> in Bob's trailer
>> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> without the laughs.

>> The bottom fell out
>> we didn't get along
>> outside of the job
>> so I moved out
>> to North Highland.

>> I moved in
>> next door to the Holt family
>> old school mill folk
>> in the former mill village.

>> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> all worked at
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> like their family before them.

>> Karen worked in the supply room
>> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> Don covered my job
>> during the say shift.

>> For some reason
>> it was important to them
>> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> that I was their cousin.

>> I never did figure that out
>> but it was cool with me.
>> I liked them all
>> they were down to Earth folks.

>> The day I moved in
>> I had my music playing loud
>> outside my window
>> was the river
>> and then Alabama.

>> I would never have imagined
>> how that area would look now
>> with the row of houses demolished
>> and with the Riverwalk below.

>> I was two floors up
>> but I still felt
>> like a mole
>> like a subterranean.

>> Wake up
>> it was Monday
>> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> down below.

>> Billy was an old school
>> Card and Blending room man
>> never late
>> sick or well he was on the job.

>> Slither down the stairs
>> so far so good
>> jump in and ride on
>> the the alternate universe
>> the factory.

>> He never failed
>> to have a spare Budweiser
>> and a smoke
>> for the short ride to
>> Shadowville Spinning Mill.

>> We'd get there in time
>> to stand around the parking lot
>> and catch a few words
>> with the crew.

>> Then the whistle would blow
>> and it was on your mark
>> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> in another land.

>> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> mill coffee
>> and then
>> in a determined stroll.

>> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> and the upstairs Reels
>> to catch everything up quick
>> get the game going right.

>> Then down the elevator
>> to the Spinning room
>> sweat shop
>> a dozen ladies
>> smoking and yelling conversations.

>> Loud roaring
>> antique seeming machinery
>> all all points
>> no escape from
>> the chaos and thunder.

>> Get it all caught up
>> then down to the sub basement
>> to pick up the prize left for me
>> by Don
>> my first shift doppelganger.

>> Any time Don
>> skipped out early
>> and left everything
>> off the mark, it was no problem.

>> He'd leave me a joint
>> at a certain spot
>> in the sub basement.

>> The basement was
>> creepy enough
>> but the sub basement
>> seemed right out
>> of a horror movie.

>> Needless to say
>> I'd keep my head down
>> and would try to get out
>> of the sub basement quickly.

>> I had been distributing
>> my broadsheets
>> among my co-worker friends
>> news of the day
>> with a twist.

>> They were entertained
>> by my poetry
>> and comic strips
>> looking for themselves
>> in the lines on paper.

>> Pat, the personnel director
>> called me in her office
>> and put the kibosh
>> on my broadsheet.

>> My poetry and art zine
>> had violated the strict
>> "No Distribution" policy
>> that no outside reading
>> was permitted inside the mill gates.

>> Since I had not been
>> aware of this policy
>> I apologized
>> and kept the broadsides
>> outside the gates from then on.

Will Dockery wrote:
> General-Zod wrote:
>> Will Dockery wrote:
>
>> >> Passage Through Ennui
>>
>> >> 35 years ago
>> >> it was another
>> >> long bitter Summer
>> >> that dark humid July 1985.
>>
>> >> I was working
>> >> the graveyard shift
>> >> operating one of the service elevators
>> >> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>
>> >> Galatea and I
>> >> had split up again
>> >> earlier in the year
>> >> after our explosive reunion
>> >> in 1983.
>>
>> >> It ended quickly
>> >> after a huge fight
>> >> with her brother
>> >> over an old score
>> >> usually forgotten.
>>
>> >> I won the fight
>> >> but actually lost.
>> >> Tracy gave up
>> >> and Galatea left with him.
>>
>> >> The year
>> >> it all came apart
>> >> seemingly permanent.
>> >> Two years of good times
>> >> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>
>> >> All I could see was
>> >> a shut down gloom.
>> >> The only laughter I heard
>> >> was down in the break room.
>>
>> >> The brown haze of factory air
>> >> angry faced people
>> >> and the music
>> >> of metal machines.
>>
>> >> Working all night
>> >> sleeping all day.
>> >> Sipping coffee
>> >> to chase the road aspirins.
>>
>> >> Sitting on the steps
>> >> over by a giant fan.
>> >> keeping up with my workers
>> >> usually five ladies
>> >> at the machines.
>>
>> >> If one of the ladies
>> >> needed anything
>> >> they'd just look my way
>> >> and wave.
>>
>> >> Several times a night
>> >> I'd make a buy and fly
>> >> bringing back coffee for them
>> >> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>
>> >> Jotting down notes
>> >> doodling narratives
>> >> creating reality
>> >> building Shadowville
>> >> from the ground up.
>>
>> >> Riding my elevator
>> >> up and down
>> >> creating samizdat
>> >> in the smoking booth.
>>
>> >> Down to the Reel room
>> >> my elevator filled
>> >> with empty racks
>> >> to bring up the full ones
>> >> for the ladies upstairs.
>>
>> >> All night
>> >> keeping it rolling
>> >> making it smooth
>> >> for the ladies
>> >> to make production.
>>
>> >> Finally to clock out
>> >> as the sad whistle would blow
>> >> we would stumble out the gate
>> >> into the grey dawn.
>>
>> >> Some headed for breakfast
>> >> and a beer
>> >> while always I headed home
>> >> for sleep
>> >> as quickly as possible.
>>
>> >> Living at Mockingbird Court
>> >> where I had shared a trailer
>> >> with my friend Bob Whitman
>> >> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>>
>> >> Bob worked downstairs
>> >> at the Autoclave
>> >> the machine that steamed chemicals
>> >> into the yarn.
>>
>> >> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>> >> ran the huge Dryers
>> >> a super hot
>> >> chemical steam bath area.
>>
>> >> Jim married
>> >> my childhood friend Pamela
>> >> and passed away too soon
>> >> from a heart attack
>>
>> >> I'm not sure how workers
>> >> down there
>> >> survived the heat
>> >> and harsh smell.
>>
>> >> Actually
>> >> I noticed not so well
>> >> as years went by
>> >> several old friends
>> >> still haunt me.
>>
>> >> There was a guy named Bill
>> >> from Chicago
>> >> found in the Dryer room
>> >> coughing up blood from TB.
>>
>> >> Chip, another Autoclave man
>> >> was found
>> >> giggling in the warehouse
>> >> up in the bales of fiber
>> >> one line of meth too many.
>>
>> >> Little Rosell
>> >> on the Reels downstairs
>> >> hot little femme fatale
>> >> who I would know better later.
>>
>> >> An unteresting lady
>> >> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>> >> and "Flashdance" shirt
>> >> she was the supervisors' choice.
>>
>> >> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>> >> found in a hallway
>> >> died there of old age.
>>
>> >> The list goes on
>> >> many who did not survive
>> >> until the shut down day
>> >> another poem for another day.
>>
>> >> At that time of the night
>> >> with machines all running right
>> >> many of us could wander
>> >> have some coffee
>> >> and get some fresh air.
>>
>> >> Bob was a good friend
>> >> at the job
>> >> quick with a joke
>> >> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>>
>> >> Many smokers and drinkers
>> >> would hang out
>> >> on the porch
>> >> outside the Autoclave room.
>>
>> >> When he heard
>> >> of my latest domestic disaster
>> >> Bob offered
>> >> to rent me a room.
>>
>> >> In a rented room
>> >> in Bob's trailer
>> >> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>> >> without the laughs.
>>
>> >> The bottom fell out
>> >> we didn't get along
>> >> outside of the job
>> >> so I moved out
>> >> to North Highland.
>>
>> >> I moved in
>> >> next door to the Holt family
>> >> old school mill folk
>> >> in the former mill village.
>>
>> >> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>> >> all worked at
>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>> >> like their family before them.
>>
>> >> Karen worked in the supply room
>> >> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>> >> Don covered my job
>> >> during the say shift.
>>
>> >> For some reason
>> >> it was important to them
>> >> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>> >> that I was their cousin.
>>
>> >> I never did figure that out
>> >> but it was cool with me.
>> >> I liked them all
>> >> they were down to Earth folks.
>>
>> >> The day I moved in
>> >> I had my music playing loud
>> >> outside my window
>> >> was the river
>> >> and then Alabama.
>>
>> >> I would never have imagined
>> >> how that area would look now
>> >> with the row of houses demolished
>> >> and with the Riverwalk below.
>>
>> >> I was two floors up
>> >> but I still felt
>> >> like a mole
>> >> like a subterranean.
>>
>> >> Wake up
>> >> it was Monday
>> >> I could hear Billy Teakson
>> >> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>> >> down below.
>>
>> >> Billy was an old school
>> >> Card and Blending room man
>> >> never late
>> >> sick or well he was on the job.
>>
>> >> Slither down the stairs
>> >> so far so good
>> >> jump in and ride on
>> >> the the alternate universe
>> >> the factory.
>>
>> >> He never failed
>> >> to have a spare Budweiser
>> >> and a smoke
>> >> for the short ride to
>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>
>> >> We'd get there in time
>> >> to stand around the parking lot
>> >> and catch a few words
>> >> with the crew.
>>
>> >> Then the whistle would blow
>> >> and it was on your mark
>> >> sail through 12 hours of dream
>> >> in another land.
>>
>> >> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>> >> mill coffee
>> >> and then
>> >> in a determined stroll.
>>
>> >> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>> >> and the upstairs Reels
>> >> to catch everything up quick
>> >> get the game going right.
>>
>> >> Then down the elevator
>> >> to the Spinning room
>> >> sweat shop
>> >> a dozen ladies
>> >> smoking and yelling conversations.
>>
>> >> Loud roaring
>> >> antique seeming machinery
>> >> all all points
>> >> no escape from
>> >> the chaos and thunder.
>>
>> >> Get it all caught up
>> >> then down to the sub basement
>> >> to pick up the prize left for me
>> >> by Don
>> >> my first shift doppelganger.
>>
>> >> Any time Don
>> >> skipped out early
>> >> and left everything
>> >> off the mark, it was no problem.
>>
>> >> He'd leave me a joint
>> >> at a certain spot
>> >> in the sub basement.
>>
>> >> The basement was
>> >> creepy enough
>> >> but the sub basement
>> >> seemed right out
>> >> of a horror movie.
>>
>> >> Needless to say
>> >> I'd keep my head down
>> >> and would try to get out
>> >> of the sub basement quickly.
>>
>> >> I had been distributing
>> >> my broadsheets
>> >> among my co-worker friends
>> >> news of the day
>> >> with a twist.
>>
>> >> They were entertained
>> >> by my poetry
>> >> and comic strips
>> >> looking for themselves
>> >> in the lines on paper.
>>
>> >> Pat, the personnel director
>> >> called me in her office
>> >> and put the kibosh
>> >> on my broadsheet.
>>
>> >> My poetry and art zine
>> >> had violated the strict
>> >> "No Distribution" policy
>> >> that no outside reading
>> >> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>>
>> >> Since I had not been
>> >> aware of this policy
>> >> I apologized
>> >> and kept the broadsides
>> >> outside the gates from then on.
>>
>> >> Absolutely
>> >> no foreknowledge
>> >> of what was coming next
>> >> taking one minute at a time.
>>
>> >> Getting from one minute
>> >> to the next
>> >> always in a hurry
>> >> caught up in the time
>> >> flashing by.
>>
>> >> Not even giving a damn
>> >> or so I told myself
>> >> by that point in time
>> >> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>>
>> >> I never could have foreseen
>> >> twenty years later in 2005
>> >> standing in a crowd
>> >> watching the old mill in flames
>>
>> >> I was living
>> >> in the worn out townhouse
>> >> at 3226 River Avenue
>> >> once part of a mill village.
>>
>> >> First week of the month
>> >> was always annoying
>> >> so much noise
>> >> as I tried to sleep.
>>
>> >> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
>> >> beating on the sides
>> >> of the houses with his cane
>> >> trying to collect his rent money.
>>
>> >> Alone
>> >> in my upstairs office
>> >> writing my manifesto
>> >> in poetry and comic strips.
>>
>> >> Right side duplex
>> >> next door to the Holden family.
>> >> Two stories overlooking
>> >> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>>
>> >> If I had the foresight
>> >> I would know sitting and waiting
>> >> was wasting precious time
>> >> the cruelty of moments.
>>
>> >> Time can't be saved
>> >> like in a bank.
>> >> I thought I was biding my time
>> >> while I was losing everything.
>>
>> >> As the North Highland
>> >> sun blazed down.
>> >> And as the cool white moon
>> >> seemed to watch over it all.
>>
>> >> The big rooms
>> >> and empty house
>> >> suited my mood
>> >> my lonesome and blue.
>>
>> >> Looking out my upstairs window
>> >> dabbling on a canvas
>> >> not a clue
>> >> what was to come.
>>
>> >> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
>> >> for a beer and some smokes
>> >> the place is long gone now
>> >> 35 years later.
>>
>> >> Back then it was
>> >> the general store
>> >> where the locals stood around
>> >> shooting the breeze.
>>
>> >> Although relatively close
>> >> the walk was winding
>> >> to get around
>> >> the far side of the factory.
>>
>> >> Found a girl named Margo
>> >> she lived
>> >> a few doors down
>> >> from my place.
>>
>> >> She said she liked my music
>> >> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
>> >> was The Clash
>> >> but I found her naivete charming.
>>
>> >> Took her out and played the game
>> >> but my heart
>> >> just wasn't in it
>> >> I never saw Margo again
>> >> after that night.
>>
>> >> At that time all seemed lost
>> >> just goes to show
>> >> I'm not much of a fortune teller
>> >> but kept hope alive.
>>
>> >> Many nights seemed like others
>> >> so I trudged
>> >> through the days
>> >> wrote poetry
>> >> through the night.
>>
>> >> Crossed my heart
>> >> and looked forward
>> >> to good luck
>> >> and happy days again.
>>
>> >> No happy ending
>> >> was expected
>> >> in the foreseeable future
>> >> just more of the same.
>>
>> >> -Will Dockery
>>
>> >> ------------------------------
>> >> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
>> >> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html
>>
>> >> ***
>>
>>
>> > Outstanding narrative/confessional poetry offering today....
>
> Thanks again, Zod, although the resident trolls NancyGene and Pendragon will no doubt disagree.

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>> General-Zod wrote:
>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>>> >> Passage Through Ennui
>>>
>>> >> 35 years ago
>>> >> it was another
>>> >> long bitter Summer
>>> >> that dark humid July 1985.
>>>
>>> >> I was working
>>> >> the graveyard shift
>>> >> operating one of the service elevators
>>> >> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>
>>> >> Galatea and I
>>> >> had split up again
>>> >> earlier in the year
>>> >> after our explosive reunion
>>> >> in 1983.
>>>
>>> >> It ended quickly
>>> >> after a huge fight
>>> >> with her brother
>>> >> over an old score
>>> >> usually forgotten.
>>>
>>> >> I won the fight
>>> >> but actually lost.
>>> >> Tracy gave up
>>> >> and Galatea left with him.
>>>
>>> >> The year
>>> >> it all came apart
>>> >> seemingly permanent.
>>> >> Two years of good times
>>> >> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>>
>>> >> All I could see was
>>> >> a shut down gloom.
>>> >> The only laughter I heard
>>> >> was down in the break room.
>>>
>>> >> The brown haze of factory air
>>> >> angry faced people
>>> >> and the music
>>> >> of metal machines.
>>>
>>> >> Working all night
>>> >> sleeping all day.
>>> >> Sipping coffee
>>> >> to chase the road aspirins.
>>>
>>> >> Sitting on the steps
>>> >> over by a giant fan.
>>> >> keeping up with my workers
>>> >> usually five ladies
>>> >> at the machines.
>>>
>>> >> If one of the ladies
>>> >> needed anything
>>> >> they'd just look my way
>>> >> and wave.
>>>
>>> >> Several times a night
>>> >> I'd make a buy and fly
>>> >> bringing back coffee for them
>>> >> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>>
>>> >> Jotting down notes
>>> >> doodling narratives
>>> >> creating reality
>>> >> building Shadowville
>>> >> from the ground up.
>>>
>>> >> Riding my elevator
>>> >> up and down
>>> >> creating samizdat
>>> >> in the smoking booth.
>>>
>>> >> Down to the Reel room
>>> >> my elevator filled
>>> >> with empty racks
>>> >> to bring up the full ones
>>> >> for the ladies upstairs.
>>>
>>> >> All night
>>> >> keeping it rolling
>>> >> making it smooth
>>> >> for the ladies
>>> >> to make production.
>>>
>>> >> Finally to clock out
>>> >> as the sad whistle would blow
>>> >> we would stumble out the gate
>>> >> into the grey dawn.
>>>
>>> >> Some headed for breakfast
>>> >> and a beer
>>> >> while always I headed home
>>> >> for sleep
>>> >> as quickly as possible.
>>>
>>> >> Living at Mockingbird Court
>>> >> where I had shared a trailer
>>> >> with my friend Bob Whitman
>>> >> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>>>
>>> >> Bob worked downstairs
>>> >> at the Autoclave
>>> >> the machine that steamed chemicals
>>> >> into the yarn.
>>>
>>> >> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>>> >> ran the huge Dryers
>>> >> a super hot
>>> >> chemical steam bath area.
>>>
>>> >> Jim married
>>> >> my childhood friend Pamela
>>> >> and passed away too soon
>>> >> from a heart attack
>>>
>>> >> I'm not sure how workers
>>> >> down there
>>> >> survived the heat
>>> >> and harsh smell.
>>>
>>> >> Actually
>>> >> I noticed not so well
>>> >> as years went by
>>> >> several old friends
>>> >> still haunt me.
>>>
>>> >> There was a guy named Bill
>>> >> from Chicago
>>> >> found in the Dryer room
>>> >> coughing up blood from TB.
>>>
>>> >> Chip, another Autoclave man
>>> >> was found
>>> >> giggling in the warehouse
>>> >> up in the bales of fiber
>>> >> one line of meth too many.
>>>
>>> >> Little Rosell
>>> >> on the Reels downstairs
>>> >> hot little femme fatale
>>> >> who I would know better later.
>>>
>>> >> An unteresting lady
>>> >> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>>> >> and "Flashdance" shirt
>>> >> she was the supervisors' choice.
>>>
>>> >> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>>> >> found in a hallway
>>> >> died there of old age.
>>>
>>> >> The list goes on
>>> >> many who did not survive
>>> >> until the shut down day
>>> >> another poem for another day.
>>>
>>> >> At that time of the night
>>> >> with machines all running right
>>> >> many of us could wander
>>> >> have some coffee
>>> >> and get some fresh air.
>>>
>>> >> Bob was a good friend
>>> >> at the job
>>> >> quick with a joke
>>> >> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>>>
>>> >> Many smokers and drinkers
>>> >> would hang out
>>> >> on the porch
>>> >> outside the Autoclave room.
>>>
>>> >> When he heard
>>> >> of my latest domestic disaster
>>> >> Bob offered
>>> >> to rent me a room.
>>>
>>> >> In a rented room
>>> >> in Bob's trailer
>>> >> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>>> >> without the laughs.
>>>
>>> >> The bottom fell out
>>> >> we didn't get along
>>> >> outside of the job
>>> >> so I moved out
>>> >> to North Highland.
>>>
>>> >> I moved in
>>> >> next door to the Holt family
>>> >> old school mill folk
>>> >> in the former mill village.
>>>
>>> >> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>>> >> all worked at
>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>>> >> like their family before them.
>>>
>>> >> Karen worked in the supply room
>>> >> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>>> >> Don covered my job
>>> >> during the say shift.
>>>
>>> >> For some reason
>>> >> it was important to them
>>> >> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>>> >> that I was their cousin.
>>>
>>> >> I never did figure that out
>>> >> but it was cool with me.
>>> >> I liked them all
>>> >> they were down to Earth folks.
>>>
>>> >> The day I moved in
>>> >> I had my music playing loud
>>> >> outside my window
>>> >> was the river
>>> >> and then Alabama.
>>>
>>> >> I would never have imagined
>>> >> how that area would look now
>>> >> with the row of houses demolished
>>> >> and with the Riverwalk below.
>>>
>>> >> I was two floors up
>>> >> but I still felt
>>> >> like a mole
>>> >> like a subterranean.
>>>
>>> >> Wake up
>>> >> it was Monday
>>> >> I could hear Billy Teakson
>>> >> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>>> >> down below.
>>>
>>> >> Billy was an old school
>>> >> Card and Blending room man
>>> >> never late
>>> >> sick or well he was on the job.
>>>
>>> >> Slither down the stairs
>>> >> so far so good
>>> >> jump in and ride on
>>> >> the the alternate universe
>>> >> the factory.
>>>
>>> >> He never failed
>>> >> to have a spare Budweiser
>>> >> and a smoke
>>> >> for the short ride to
>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>
>>> >> We'd get there in time
>>> >> to stand around the parking lot
>>> >> and catch a few words
>>> >> with the crew.
>>>
>>> >> Then the whistle would blow
>>> >> and it was on your mark
>>> >> sail through 12 hours of dream
>>> >> in another land.
>>>
>>> >> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>>> >> mill coffee
>>> >> and then
>>> >> in a determined stroll.
>>>
>>> >> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>>> >> and the upstairs Reels
>>> >> to catch everything up quick
>>> >> get the game going right.
>>>
>>> >> Then down the elevator
>>> >> to the Spinning room
>>> >> sweat shop
>>> >> a dozen ladies
>>> >> smoking and yelling conversations.
>>>
>>> >> Loud roaring
>>> >> antique seeming machinery
>>> >> all all points
>>> >> no escape from
>>> >> the chaos and thunder.
>>>
>>> >> Get it all caught up
>>> >> then down to the sub basement
>>> >> to pick up the prize left for me
>>> >> by Don
>>> >> my first shift doppelganger.
>>>
>>> >> Any time Don
>>> >> skipped out early
>>> >> and left everything
>>> >> off the mark, it was no problem.
>>>
>>> >> He'd leave me a joint
>>> >> at a certain spot
>>> >> in the sub basement.
>>>
>>> >> The basement was
>>> >> creepy enough
>>> >> but the sub basement
>>> >> seemed right out
>>> >> of a horror movie.
>>>
>>> >> Needless to say
>>> >> I'd keep my head down
>>> >> and would try to get out
>>> >> of the sub basement quickly.
>>>
>>> >> I had been distributing
>>> >> my broadsheets
>>> >> among my co-worker friends
>>> >> news of the day
>>> >> with a twist.
>>>
>>> >> They were entertained
>>> >> by my poetry
>>> >> and comic strips
>>> >> looking for themselves
>>> >> in the lines on paper.
>>>
>>> >> Pat, the personnel director
>>> >> called me in her office
>>> >> and put the kibosh
>>> >> on my broadsheet.
>>>
>>> >> My poetry and art zine
>>> >> had violated the strict
>>> >> "No Distribution" policy
>>> >> that no outside reading
>>> >> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>>>
>>> >> Since I had not been
>>> >> aware of this policy
>>> >> I apologized
>>> >> and kept the broadsides
>>> >> outside the gates from then on.
>>>
>>> >> Absolutely
>>> >> no foreknowledge
>>> >> of what was coming next
>>> >> taking one minute at a time.
>>>
>>> >> Getting from one minute
>>> >> to the next
>>> >> always in a hurry
>>> >> caught up in the time
>>> >> flashing by.
>>>
>>> >> Not even giving a damn
>>> >> or so I told myself
>>> >> by that point in time
>>> >> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>>>
>>> >> I never could have foreseen
>>> >> twenty years later in 2005
>>> >> standing in a crowd
>>> >> watching the old mill in flames
>>>
>>> >> I was living
>>> >> in the worn out townhouse
>>> >> at 3226 River Avenue
>>> >> once part of a mill village.
>>>
>>> >> First week of the month
>>> >> was always annoying
>>> >> so much noise
>>> >> as I tried to sleep.
>>>
>>> >> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
>>> >> beating on the sides
>>> >> of the houses with his cane
>>> >> trying to collect his rent money.
>>>
>>> >> Alone
>>> >> in my upstairs office
>>> >> writing my manifesto
>>> >> in poetry and comic strips.
>>>
>>> >> Right side duplex
>>> >> next door to the Holden family.
>>> >> Two stories overlooking
>>> >> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>>>
>>> >> If I had the foresight
>>> >> I would know sitting and waiting
>>> >> was wasting precious time
>>> >> the cruelty of moments.
>>>
>>> >> Time can't be saved
>>> >> like in a bank.
>>> >> I thought I was biding my time
>>> >> while I was losing everything.
>>>
>>> >> As the North Highland
>>> >> sun blazed down.
>>> >> And as the cool white moon
>>> >> seemed to watch over it all.
>>>
>>> >> The big rooms
>>> >> and empty house
>>> >> suited my mood
>>> >> my lonesome and blue.
>>>
>>> >> Looking out my upstairs window
>>> >> dabbling on a canvas
>>> >> not a clue
>>> >> what was to come.
>>>
>>> >> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
>>> >> for a beer and some smokes
>>> >> the place is long gone now
>>> >> 35 years later.
>>>
>>> >> Back then it was
>>> >> the general store
>>> >> where the locals stood around
>>> >> shooting the breeze.
>>>
>>> >> Although relatively close
>>> >> the walk was winding
>>> >> to get around
>>> >> the far side of the factory.
>>>
>>> >> Found a girl named Margo
>>> >> she lived
>>> >> a few doors down
>>> >> from my place.
>>>
>>> >> She said she liked my music
>>> >> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
>>> >> was The Clash
>>> >> but I found her naivete charming.
>>>
>>> >> Took her out and played the game
>>> >> but my heart
>>> >> just wasn't in it
>>> >> I never saw Margo again
>>> >> after that night.
>>>
>>> >> At that time all seemed lost
>>> >> just goes to show
>>> >> I'm not much of a fortune teller
>>> >> but kept hope alive.
>>>
>>> >> Many nights seemed like others
>>> >> so I trudged
>>> >> through the days
>>> >> wrote poetry
>>> >> through the night.
>>>
>>> >> Crossed my heart
>>> >> and looked forward
>>> >> to good luck
>>> >> and happy days again.
>>>
>>> >> No happy ending
>>> >> was expected
>>> >> in the foreseeable future
>>> >> just more of the same.
>>>
>>> >> -Will Dockery
>>>
>>> >> ------------------------------
>>> >> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
>>> >> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html
>>>
>>> >> ***
>>>
>>>
>>> > Outstanding narrative/confessional poetry offering today....
>>
>> Thanks again, Zod, although the resident trolls NancyGene and Pendragon will no doubt disagree.

W.Dockery wrote:

> General-Zod wrote:

>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>> General-Zod wrote:
>>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>>
>>>> >> Passage Through Ennui
>>>>
>>>> >> 35 years ago
>>>> >> it was another
>>>> >> long bitter Summer
>>>> >> that dark humid July 1985.
>>>>
>>>> >> I was working
>>>> >> the graveyard shift
>>>> >> operating one of the service elevators
>>>> >> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>>
>>>> >> Galatea and I
>>>> >> had split up again
>>>> >> earlier in the year
>>>> >> after our explosive reunion
>>>> >> in 1983.
>>>>
>>>> >> It ended quickly
>>>> >> after a huge fight
>>>> >> with her brother
>>>> >> over an old score
>>>> >> usually forgotten.
>>>>
>>>> >> I won the fight
>>>> >> but actually lost.
>>>> >> Tracy gave up
>>>> >> and Galatea left with him.
>>>>
>>>> >> The year
>>>> >> it all came apart
>>>> >> seemingly permanent.
>>>> >> Two years of good times
>>>> >> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>>>
>>>> >> All I could see was
>>>> >> a shut down gloom.
>>>> >> The only laughter I heard
>>>> >> was down in the break room.
>>>>
>>>> >> The brown haze of factory air
>>>> >> angry faced people
>>>> >> and the music
>>>> >> of metal machines.
>>>>
>>>> >> Working all night
>>>> >> sleeping all day.
>>>> >> Sipping coffee
>>>> >> to chase the road aspirins.
>>>>
>>>> >> Sitting on the steps
>>>> >> over by a giant fan.
>>>> >> keeping up with my workers
>>>> >> usually five ladies
>>>> >> at the machines.
>>>>
>>>> >> If one of the ladies
>>>> >> needed anything
>>>> >> they'd just look my way
>>>> >> and wave.
>>>>
>>>> >> Several times a night
>>>> >> I'd make a buy and fly
>>>> >> bringing back coffee for them
>>>> >> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>>>
>>>> >> Jotting down notes
>>>> >> doodling narratives
>>>> >> creating reality
>>>> >> building Shadowville
>>>> >> from the ground up.
>>>>
>>>> >> Riding my elevator
>>>> >> up and down
>>>> >> creating samizdat
>>>> >> in the smoking booth.
>>>>
>>>> >> Down to the Reel room
>>>> >> my elevator filled
>>>> >> with empty racks
>>>> >> to bring up the full ones
>>>> >> for the ladies upstairs.
>>>>
>>>> >> All night
>>>> >> keeping it rolling
>>>> >> making it smooth
>>>> >> for the ladies
>>>> >> to make production.
>>>>
>>>> >> Finally to clock out
>>>> >> as the sad whistle would blow
>>>> >> we would stumble out the gate
>>>> >> into the grey dawn.
>>>>
>>>> >> Some headed for breakfast
>>>> >> and a beer
>>>> >> while always I headed home
>>>> >> for sleep
>>>> >> as quickly as possible.
>>>>
>>>> >> Living at Mockingbird Court
>>>> >> where I had shared a trailer
>>>> >> with my friend Bob Whitman
>>>> >> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>>>>
>>>> >> Bob worked downstairs
>>>> >> at the Autoclave
>>>> >> the machine that steamed chemicals
>>>> >> into the yarn.
>>>>
>>>> >> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>>>> >> ran the huge Dryers
>>>> >> a super hot
>>>> >> chemical steam bath area.
>>>>
>>>> >> Jim married
>>>> >> my childhood friend Pamela
>>>> >> and passed away too soon
>>>> >> from a heart attack
>>>>
>>>> >> I'm not sure how workers
>>>> >> down there
>>>> >> survived the heat
>>>> >> and harsh smell.
>>>>
>>>> >> Actually
>>>> >> I noticed not so well
>>>> >> as years went by
>>>> >> several old friends
>>>> >> still haunt me.
>>>>
>>>> >> There was a guy named Bill
>>>> >> from Chicago
>>>> >> found in the Dryer room
>>>> >> coughing up blood from TB.
>>>>
>>>> >> Chip, another Autoclave man
>>>> >> was found
>>>> >> giggling in the warehouse
>>>> >> up in the bales of fiber
>>>> >> one line of meth too many.
>>>>
>>>> >> Little Rosell
>>>> >> on the Reels downstairs
>>>> >> hot little femme fatale
>>>> >> who I would know better later.
>>>>
>>>> >> An unteresting lady
>>>> >> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>>>> >> and "Flashdance" shirt
>>>> >> she was the supervisors' choice.
>>>>
>>>> >> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>>>> >> found in a hallway
>>>> >> died there of old age.
>>>>
>>>> >> The list goes on
>>>> >> many who did not survive
>>>> >> until the shut down day
>>>> >> another poem for another day.
>>>>
>>>> >> At that time of the night
>>>> >> with machines all running right
>>>> >> many of us could wander
>>>> >> have some coffee
>>>> >> and get some fresh air.
>>>>
>>>> >> Bob was a good friend
>>>> >> at the job
>>>> >> quick with a joke
>>>> >> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>>>>
>>>> >> Many smokers and drinkers
>>>> >> would hang out
>>>> >> on the porch
>>>> >> outside the Autoclave room.
>>>>
>>>> >> When he heard
>>>> >> of my latest domestic disaster
>>>> >> Bob offered
>>>> >> to rent me a room.
>>>>
>>>> >> In a rented room
>>>> >> in Bob's trailer
>>>> >> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>>>> >> without the laughs.
>>>>
>>>> >> The bottom fell out
>>>> >> we didn't get along
>>>> >> outside of the job
>>>> >> so I moved out
>>>> >> to North Highland.
>>>>
>>>> >> I moved in
>>>> >> next door to the Holt family
>>>> >> old school mill folk
>>>> >> in the former mill village.
>>>>
>>>> >> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>>>> >> all worked at
>>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>>>> >> like their family before them.
>>>>
>>>> >> Karen worked in the supply room
>>>> >> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>>>> >> Don covered my job
>>>> >> during the say shift.
>>>>
>>>> >> For some reason
>>>> >> it was important to them
>>>> >> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>>>> >> that I was their cousin.
>>>>
>>>> >> I never did figure that out
>>>> >> but it was cool with me.
>>>> >> I liked them all
>>>> >> they were down to Earth folks.
>>>>
>>>> >> The day I moved in
>>>> >> I had my music playing loud
>>>> >> outside my window
>>>> >> was the river
>>>> >> and then Alabama.
>>>>
>>>> >> I would never have imagined
>>>> >> how that area would look now
>>>> >> with the row of houses demolished
>>>> >> and with the Riverwalk below.
>>>>
>>>> >> I was two floors up
>>>> >> but I still felt
>>>> >> like a mole
>>>> >> like a subterranean.
>>>>
>>>> >> Wake up
>>>> >> it was Monday
>>>> >> I could hear Billy Teakson
>>>> >> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>>>> >> down below.
>>>>
>>>> >> Billy was an old school
>>>> >> Card and Blending room man
>>>> >> never late
>>>> >> sick or well he was on the job.
>>>>
>>>> >> Slither down the stairs
>>>> >> so far so good
>>>> >> jump in and ride on
>>>> >> the the alternate universe
>>>> >> the factory.
>>>>
>>>> >> He never failed
>>>> >> to have a spare Budweiser
>>>> >> and a smoke
>>>> >> for the short ride to
>>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>>
>>>> >> We'd get there in time
>>>> >> to stand around the parking lot
>>>> >> and catch a few words
>>>> >> with the crew.
>>>>
>>>> >> Then the whistle would blow
>>>> >> and it was on your mark
>>>> >> sail through 12 hours of dream
>>>> >> in another land.
>>>>
>>>> >> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>>>> >> mill coffee
>>>> >> and then
>>>> >> in a determined stroll.
>>>>
>>>> >> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>>>> >> and the upstairs Reels
>>>> >> to catch everything up quick
>>>> >> get the game going right.
>>>>
>>>> >> Then down the elevator
>>>> >> to the Spinning room
>>>> >> sweat shop
>>>> >> a dozen ladies
>>>> >> smoking and yelling conversations.
>>>>
>>>> >> Loud roaring
>>>> >> antique seeming machinery
>>>> >> all all points
>>>> >> no escape from
>>>> >> the chaos and thunder.
>>>>
>>>> >> Get it all caught up
>>>> >> then down to the sub basement
>>>> >> to pick up the prize left for me
>>>> >> by Don
>>>> >> my first shift doppelganger.
>>>>
>>>> >> Any time Don
>>>> >> skipped out early
>>>> >> and left everything
>>>> >> off the mark, it was no problem.
>>>>
>>>> >> He'd leave me a joint
>>>> >> at a certain spot
>>>> >> in the sub basement.
>>>>
>>>> >> The basement was
>>>> >> creepy enough
>>>> >> but the sub basement
>>>> >> seemed right out
>>>> >> of a horror movie.
>>>>
>>>> >> Needless to say
>>>> >> I'd keep my head down
>>>> >> and would try to get out
>>>> >> of the sub basement quickly.
>>>>
>>>> >> I had been distributing
>>>> >> my broadsheets
>>>> >> among my co-worker friends
>>>> >> news of the day
>>>> >> with a twist.
>>>>
>>>> >> They were entertained
>>>> >> by my poetry
>>>> >> and comic strips
>>>> >> looking for themselves
>>>> >> in the lines on paper.
>>>>
>>>> >> Pat, the personnel director
>>>> >> called me in her office
>>>> >> and put the kibosh
>>>> >> on my broadsheet.
>>>>
>>>> >> My poetry and art zine
>>>> >> had violated the strict
>>>> >> "No Distribution" policy
>>>> >> that no outside reading
>>>> >> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>>>>
>>>> >> Since I had not been
>>>> >> aware of this policy
>>>> >> I apologized
>>>> >> and kept the broadsides
>>>> >> outside the gates from then on.
>>>>
>>>> >> Absolutely
>>>> >> no foreknowledge
>>>> >> of what was coming next
>>>> >> taking one minute at a time.
>>>>
>>>> >> Getting from one minute
>>>> >> to the next
>>>> >> always in a hurry
>>>> >> caught up in the time
>>>> >> flashing by.
>>>>
>>>> >> Not even giving a damn
>>>> >> or so I told myself
>>>> >> by that point in time
>>>> >> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>>>>
>>>> >> I never could have foreseen
>>>> >> twenty years later in 2005
>>>> >> standing in a crowd
>>>> >> watching the old mill in flames
>>>>
>>>> >> I was living
>>>> >> in the worn out townhouse
>>>> >> at 3226 River Avenue
>>>> >> once part of a mill village.
>>>>
>>>> >> First week of the month
>>>> >> was always annoying
>>>> >> so much noise
>>>> >> as I tried to sleep.
>>>>
>>>> >> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
>>>> >> beating on the sides
>>>> >> of the houses with his cane
>>>> >> trying to collect his rent money.
>>>>
>>>> >> Alone
>>>> >> in my upstairs office
>>>> >> writing my manifesto
>>>> >> in poetry and comic strips.
>>>>
>>>> >> Right side duplex
>>>> >> next door to the Holden family.
>>>> >> Two stories overlooking
>>>> >> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>>>>
>>>> >> If I had the foresight
>>>> >> I would know sitting and waiting
>>>> >> was wasting precious time
>>>> >> the cruelty of moments.
>>>>
>>>> >> Time can't be saved
>>>> >> like in a bank.
>>>> >> I thought I was biding my time
>>>> >> while I was losing everything.
>>>>
>>>> >> As the North Highland
>>>> >> sun blazed down.
>>>> >> And as the cool white moon
>>>> >> seemed to watch over it all.
>>>>
>>>> >> The big rooms
>>>> >> and empty house
>>>> >> suited my mood
>>>> >> my lonesome and blue.
>>>>
>>>> >> Looking out my upstairs window
>>>> >> dabbling on a canvas
>>>> >> not a clue
>>>> >> what was to come.
>>>>
>>>> >> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
>>>> >> for a beer and some smokes
>>>> >> the place is long gone now
>>>> >> 35 years later.
>>>>
>>>> >> Back then it was
>>>> >> the general store
>>>> >> where the locals stood around
>>>> >> shooting the breeze.
>>>>
>>>> >> Although relatively close
>>>> >> the walk was winding
>>>> >> to get around
>>>> >> the far side of the factory.
>>>>
>>>> >> Found a girl named Margo
>>>> >> she lived
>>>> >> a few doors down
>>>> >> from my place.
>>>>
>>>> >> She said she liked my music
>>>> >> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
>>>> >> was The Clash
>>>> >> but I found her naivete charming.
>>>>
>>>> >> Took her out and played the game
>>>> >> but my heart
>>>> >> just wasn't in it
>>>> >> I never saw Margo again
>>>> >> after that night.
>>>>
>>>> >> At that time all seemed lost
>>>> >> just goes to show
>>>> >> I'm not much of a fortune teller
>>>> >> but kept hope alive.
>>>>
>>>> >> Many nights seemed like others
>>>> >> so I trudged
>>>> >> through the days
>>>> >> wrote poetry
>>>> >> through the night.
>>>>
>>>> >> Crossed my heart
>>>> >> and looked forward
>>>> >> to good luck
>>>> >> and happy days again.
>>>>
>>>> >> No happy ending
>>>> >> was expected
>>>> >> in the foreseeable future
>>>> >> just more of the same.
>>>>
>>>> >> -Will Dockery
>>>>
>>>> >> ------------------------------
>>>> >> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
>>>> >> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html
>>>>
>>>> >> ***
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > Outstanding narrative/confessional poetry offering today....
>>>
>>> Thanks again, Zod, although the resident trolls NancyGene and Pendragon will no doubt disagree.

Will Dockery wrote:
> General-Zod wrote:
>> Will Dockery wrote:
>
>>>>> >> Passage Through Ennui
>>>>>
>>>>> >> 35 years ago
>>>>> >> it was another
>>>>> >> long bitter Summer
>>>>> >> that dark humid July 1985.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I was working
>>>>> >> the graveyard shift
>>>>> >> operating one of the service elevators
>>>>> >> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Galatea and I
>>>>> >> had split up again
>>>>> >> earlier in the year
>>>>> >> after our explosive reunion
>>>>> >> in 1983.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> It ended quickly
>>>>> >> after a huge fight
>>>>> >> with her brother
>>>>> >> over an old score
>>>>> >> usually forgotten.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I won the fight
>>>>> >> but actually lost.
>>>>> >> Tracy gave up
>>>>> >> and Galatea left with him.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> The year
>>>>> >> it all came apart
>>>>> >> seemingly permanent.
>>>>> >> Two years of good times
>>>>> >> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>>>>
>>>>> >> All I could see was
>>>>> >> a shut down gloom.
>>>>> >> The only laughter I heard
>>>>> >> was down in the break room.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> The brown haze of factory air
>>>>> >> angry faced people
>>>>> >> and the music
>>>>> >> of metal machines.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Working all night
>>>>> >> sleeping all day.
>>>>> >> Sipping coffee
>>>>> >> to chase the road aspirins.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Sitting on the steps
>>>>> >> over by a giant fan.
>>>>> >> keeping up with my workers
>>>>> >> usually five ladies
>>>>> >> at the machines.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> If one of the ladies
>>>>> >> needed anything
>>>>> >> they'd just look my way
>>>>> >> and wave.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Several times a night
>>>>> >> I'd make a buy and fly
>>>>> >> bringing back coffee for them
>>>>> >> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Jotting down notes
>>>>> >> doodling narratives
>>>>> >> creating reality
>>>>> >> building Shadowville
>>>>> >> from the ground up.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Riding my elevator
>>>>> >> up and down
>>>>> >> creating samizdat
>>>>> >> in the smoking booth.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Down to the Reel room
>>>>> >> my elevator filled
>>>>> >> with empty racks
>>>>> >> to bring up the full ones
>>>>> >> for the ladies upstairs.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> All night
>>>>> >> keeping it rolling
>>>>> >> making it smooth
>>>>> >> for the ladies
>>>>> >> to make production.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Finally to clock out
>>>>> >> as the sad whistle would blow
>>>>> >> we would stumble out the gate
>>>>> >> into the grey dawn.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Some headed for breakfast
>>>>> >> and a beer
>>>>> >> while always I headed home
>>>>> >> for sleep
>>>>> >> as quickly as possible.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Living at Mockingbird Court
>>>>> >> where I had shared a trailer
>>>>> >> with my friend Bob Whitman
>>>>> >> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Bob worked downstairs
>>>>> >> at the Autoclave
>>>>> >> the machine that steamed chemicals
>>>>> >> into the yarn.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>>>>> >> ran the huge Dryers
>>>>> >> a super hot
>>>>> >> chemical steam bath area.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Jim married
>>>>> >> my childhood friend Pamela
>>>>> >> and passed away too soon
>>>>> >> from a heart attack
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I'm not sure how workers
>>>>> >> down there
>>>>> >> survived the heat
>>>>> >> and harsh smell.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Actually
>>>>> >> I noticed not so well
>>>>> >> as years went by
>>>>> >> several old friends
>>>>> >> still haunt me.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> There was a guy named Bill
>>>>> >> from Chicago
>>>>> >> found in the Dryer room
>>>>> >> coughing up blood from TB.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Chip, another Autoclave man
>>>>> >> was found
>>>>> >> giggling in the warehouse
>>>>> >> up in the bales of fiber
>>>>> >> one line of meth too many.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Little Rosell
>>>>> >> on the Reels downstairs
>>>>> >> hot little femme fatale
>>>>> >> who I would know better later.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> An unteresting lady
>>>>> >> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>>>>> >> and "Flashdance" shirt
>>>>> >> she was the supervisors' choice.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>>>>> >> found in a hallway
>>>>> >> died there of old age.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> The list goes on
>>>>> >> many who did not survive
>>>>> >> until the shut down day
>>>>> >> another poem for another day.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> At that time of the night
>>>>> >> with machines all running right
>>>>> >> many of us could wander
>>>>> >> have some coffee
>>>>> >> and get some fresh air.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Bob was a good friend
>>>>> >> at the job
>>>>> >> quick with a joke
>>>>> >> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Many smokers and drinkers
>>>>> >> would hang out
>>>>> >> on the porch
>>>>> >> outside the Autoclave room.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> When he heard
>>>>> >> of my latest domestic disaster
>>>>> >> Bob offered
>>>>> >> to rent me a room.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> In a rented room
>>>>> >> in Bob's trailer
>>>>> >> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>>>>> >> without the laughs.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> The bottom fell out
>>>>> >> we didn't get along
>>>>> >> outside of the job
>>>>> >> so I moved out
>>>>> >> to North Highland.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I moved in
>>>>> >> next door to the Holt family
>>>>> >> old school mill folk
>>>>> >> in the former mill village.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>>>>> >> all worked at
>>>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>>>>> >> like their family before them.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Karen worked in the supply room
>>>>> >> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>>>>> >> Don covered my job
>>>>> >> during the say shift.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> For some reason
>>>>> >> it was important to them
>>>>> >> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>>>>> >> that I was their cousin.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I never did figure that out
>>>>> >> but it was cool with me.
>>>>> >> I liked them all
>>>>> >> they were down to Earth folks.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> The day I moved in
>>>>> >> I had my music playing loud
>>>>> >> outside my window
>>>>> >> was the river
>>>>> >> and then Alabama.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I would never have imagined
>>>>> >> how that area would look now
>>>>> >> with the row of houses demolished
>>>>> >> and with the Riverwalk below.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I was two floors up
>>>>> >> but I still felt
>>>>> >> like a mole
>>>>> >> like a subterranean.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Wake up
>>>>> >> it was Monday
>>>>> >> I could hear Billy Teakson
>>>>> >> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>>>>> >> down below.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Billy was an old school
>>>>> >> Card and Blending room man
>>>>> >> never late
>>>>> >> sick or well he was on the job.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Slither down the stairs
>>>>> >> so far so good
>>>>> >> jump in and ride on
>>>>> >> the the alternate universe
>>>>> >> the factory.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> He never failed
>>>>> >> to have a spare Budweiser
>>>>> >> and a smoke
>>>>> >> for the short ride to
>>>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> We'd get there in time
>>>>> >> to stand around the parking lot
>>>>> >> and catch a few words
>>>>> >> with the crew.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Then the whistle would blow
>>>>> >> and it was on your mark
>>>>> >> sail through 12 hours of dream
>>>>> >> in another land.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>>>>> >> mill coffee
>>>>> >> and then
>>>>> >> in a determined stroll.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>>>>> >> and the upstairs Reels
>>>>> >> to catch everything up quick
>>>>> >> get the game going right.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Then down the elevator
>>>>> >> to the Spinning room
>>>>> >> sweat shop
>>>>> >> a dozen ladies
>>>>> >> smoking and yelling conversations.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Loud roaring
>>>>> >> antique seeming machinery
>>>>> >> all all points
>>>>> >> no escape from
>>>>> >> the chaos and thunder.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Get it all caught up
>>>>> >> then down to the sub basement
>>>>> >> to pick up the prize left for me
>>>>> >> by Don
>>>>> >> my first shift doppelganger.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Any time Don
>>>>> >> skipped out early
>>>>> >> and left everything
>>>>> >> off the mark, it was no problem.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> He'd leave me a joint
>>>>> >> at a certain spot
>>>>> >> in the sub basement.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> The basement was
>>>>> >> creepy enough
>>>>> >> but the sub basement
>>>>> >> seemed right out
>>>>> >> of a horror movie.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Needless to say
>>>>> >> I'd keep my head down
>>>>> >> and would try to get out
>>>>> >> of the sub basement quickly.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I had been distributing
>>>>> >> my broadsheets
>>>>> >> among my co-worker friends
>>>>> >> news of the day
>>>>> >> with a twist.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> They were entertained
>>>>> >> by my poetry
>>>>> >> and comic strips
>>>>> >> looking for themselves
>>>>> >> in the lines on paper.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Pat, the personnel director
>>>>> >> called me in her office
>>>>> >> and put the kibosh
>>>>> >> on my broadsheet.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> My poetry and art zine
>>>>> >> had violated the strict
>>>>> >> "No Distribution" policy
>>>>> >> that no outside reading
>>>>> >> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Since I had not been
>>>>> >> aware of this policy
>>>>> >> I apologized
>>>>> >> and kept the broadsides
>>>>> >> outside the gates from then on.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Absolutely
>>>>> >> no foreknowledge
>>>>> >> of what was coming next
>>>>> >> taking one minute at a time.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Getting from one minute
>>>>> >> to the next
>>>>> >> always in a hurry
>>>>> >> caught up in the time
>>>>> >> flashing by.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Not even giving a damn
>>>>> >> or so I told myself
>>>>> >> by that point in time
>>>>> >> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I never could have foreseen
>>>>> >> twenty years later in 2005
>>>>> >> standing in a crowd
>>>>> >> watching the old mill in flames
>>>>>
>>>>> >> I was living
>>>>> >> in the worn out townhouse
>>>>> >> at 3226 River Avenue
>>>>> >> once part of a mill village.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> First week of the month
>>>>> >> was always annoying
>>>>> >> so much noise
>>>>> >> as I tried to sleep.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
>>>>> >> beating on the sides
>>>>> >> of the houses with his cane
>>>>> >> trying to collect his rent money.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Alone
>>>>> >> in my upstairs office
>>>>> >> writing my manifesto
>>>>> >> in poetry and comic strips.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Right side duplex
>>>>> >> next door to the Holden family.
>>>>> >> Two stories overlooking
>>>>> >> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> If I had the foresight
>>>>> >> I would know sitting and waiting
>>>>> >> was wasting precious time
>>>>> >> the cruelty of moments.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Time can't be saved
>>>>> >> like in a bank.
>>>>> >> I thought I was biding my time
>>>>> >> while I was losing everything.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> As the North Highland
>>>>> >> sun blazed down.
>>>>> >> And as the cool white moon
>>>>> >> seemed to watch over it all.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> The big rooms
>>>>> >> and empty house
>>>>> >> suited my mood
>>>>> >> my lonesome and blue.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Looking out my upstairs window
>>>>> >> dabbling on a canvas
>>>>> >> not a clue
>>>>> >> what was to come.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
>>>>> >> for a beer and some smokes
>>>>> >> the place is long gone now
>>>>> >> 35 years later.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Back then it was
>>>>> >> the general store
>>>>> >> where the locals stood around
>>>>> >> shooting the breeze.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Although relatively close
>>>>> >> the walk was winding
>>>>> >> to get around
>>>>> >> the far side of the factory.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Found a girl named Margo
>>>>> >> she lived
>>>>> >> a few doors down
>>>>> >> from my place.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> She said she liked my music
>>>>> >> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
>>>>> >> was The Clash
>>>>> >> but I found her naivete charming.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Took her out and played the game
>>>>> >> but my heart
>>>>> >> just wasn't in it
>>>>> >> I never saw Margo again
>>>>> >> after that night.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> At that time all seemed lost
>>>>> >> just goes to show
>>>>> >> I'm not much of a fortune teller
>>>>> >> but kept hope alive.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Many nights seemed like others
>>>>> >> so I trudged
>>>>> >> through the days
>>>>> >> wrote poetry
>>>>> >> through the night.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> Crossed my heart
>>>>> >> and looked forward
>>>>> >> to good luck
>>>>> >> and happy days again.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> No happy ending
>>>>> >> was expected
>>>>> >> in the foreseeable future
>>>>> >> just more of the same.
>>>>>
>>>>> >> -Will Dockery
>>>>>
>>>>> >> ------------------------------
>>>>> >> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
>>>>> >> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html
>>>>>
>>>>> >> ***
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> > Outstanding narrative/confessional poetry offering today....
>>>>
>>>> Thanks again, Zod, although the resident trolls NancyGene and Pendragon will no doubt disagree.

General-Zod wrote:

> Will Dockery wrote:
>> General-Zod wrote:
>>> Will Dockery wrote:
>>
>>>>>> >> Passage Through Ennui
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> 35 years ago
>>>>>> >> it was another
>>>>>> >> long bitter Summer
>>>>>> >> that dark humid July 1985.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I was working
>>>>>> >> the graveyard shift
>>>>>> >> operating one of the service elevators
>>>>>> >> at Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Galatea and I
>>>>>> >> had split up again
>>>>>> >> earlier in the year
>>>>>> >> after our explosive reunion
>>>>>> >> in 1983.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> It ended quickly
>>>>>> >> after a huge fight
>>>>>> >> with her brother
>>>>>> >> over an old score
>>>>>> >> usually forgotten.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I won the fight
>>>>>> >> but actually lost.
>>>>>> >> Tracy gave up
>>>>>> >> and Galatea left with him.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> The year
>>>>>> >> it all came apart
>>>>>> >> seemingly permanent.
>>>>>> >> Two years of good times
>>>>>> >> ended in a moonshine rage. .
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> All I could see was
>>>>>> >> a shut down gloom.
>>>>>> >> The only laughter I heard
>>>>>> >> was down in the break room.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> The brown haze of factory air
>>>>>> >> angry faced people
>>>>>> >> and the music
>>>>>> >> of metal machines.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Working all night
>>>>>> >> sleeping all day.
>>>>>> >> Sipping coffee
>>>>>> >> to chase the road aspirins.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Sitting on the steps
>>>>>> >> over by a giant fan.
>>>>>> >> keeping up with my workers
>>>>>> >> usually five ladies
>>>>>> >> at the machines.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> If one of the ladies
>>>>>> >> needed anything
>>>>>> >> they'd just look my way
>>>>>> >> and wave.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Several times a night
>>>>>> >> I'd make a buy and fly
>>>>>> >> bringing back coffee for them
>>>>>> >> on makeshift cardboard trays.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Jotting down notes
>>>>>> >> doodling narratives
>>>>>> >> creating reality
>>>>>> >> building Shadowville
>>>>>> >> from the ground up.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Riding my elevator
>>>>>> >> up and down
>>>>>> >> creating samizdat
>>>>>> >> in the smoking booth.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Down to the Reel room
>>>>>> >> my elevator filled
>>>>>> >> with empty racks
>>>>>> >> to bring up the full ones
>>>>>> >> for the ladies upstairs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> All night
>>>>>> >> keeping it rolling
>>>>>> >> making it smooth
>>>>>> >> for the ladies
>>>>>> >> to make production.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Finally to clock out
>>>>>> >> as the sad whistle would blow
>>>>>> >> we would stumble out the gate
>>>>>> >> into the grey dawn.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Some headed for breakfast
>>>>>> >> and a beer
>>>>>> >> while always I headed home
>>>>>> >> for sleep
>>>>>> >> as quickly as possible.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Living at Mockingbird Court
>>>>>> >> where I had shared a trailer
>>>>>> >> with my friend Bob Whitman
>>>>>> >> an Army vet turned factory worker.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Bob worked downstairs
>>>>>> >> at the Autoclave
>>>>>> >> the machine that steamed chemicals
>>>>>> >> into the yarn.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Bob's sidekick Jim Berg
>>>>>> >> ran the huge Dryers
>>>>>> >> a super hot
>>>>>> >> chemical steam bath area.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Jim married
>>>>>> >> my childhood friend Pamela
>>>>>> >> and passed away too soon
>>>>>> >> from a heart attack
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I'm not sure how workers
>>>>>> >> down there
>>>>>> >> survived the heat
>>>>>> >> and harsh smell.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Actually
>>>>>> >> I noticed not so well
>>>>>> >> as years went by
>>>>>> >> several old friends
>>>>>> >> still haunt me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> There was a guy named Bill
>>>>>> >> from Chicago
>>>>>> >> found in the Dryer room
>>>>>> >> coughing up blood from TB.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Chip, another Autoclave man
>>>>>> >> was found
>>>>>> >> giggling in the warehouse
>>>>>> >> up in the bales of fiber
>>>>>> >> one line of meth too many.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Little Rosell
>>>>>> >> on the Reels downstairs
>>>>>> >> hot little femme fatale
>>>>>> >> who I would know better later.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> An unteresting lady
>>>>>> >> in her Daisy Duke shorts
>>>>>> >> and "Flashdance" shirt
>>>>>> >> she was the supervisors' choice.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Pipe smoking old Mr. Green
>>>>>> >> found in a hallway
>>>>>> >> died there of old age.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> The list goes on
>>>>>> >> many who did not survive
>>>>>> >> until the shut down day
>>>>>> >> another poem for another day.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> At that time of the night
>>>>>> >> with machines all running right
>>>>>> >> many of us could wander
>>>>>> >> have some coffee
>>>>>> >> and get some fresh air.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Bob was a good friend
>>>>>> >> at the job
>>>>>> >> quick with a joke
>>>>>> >> or pass his pipe for a toke.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Many smokers and drinkers
>>>>>> >> would hang out
>>>>>> >> on the porch
>>>>>> >> outside the Autoclave room.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> When he heard
>>>>>> >> of my latest domestic disaster
>>>>>> >> Bob offered
>>>>>> >> to rent me a room.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> In a rented room
>>>>>> >> in Bob's trailer
>>>>>> >> like a scene from The Odd Couple
>>>>>> >> without the laughs.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> The bottom fell out
>>>>>> >> we didn't get along
>>>>>> >> outside of the job
>>>>>> >> so I moved out
>>>>>> >> to North Highland.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I moved in
>>>>>> >> next door to the Holt family
>>>>>> >> old school mill folk
>>>>>> >> in the former mill village.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Don, Walter and Karen Holden
>>>>>> >> all worked at
>>>>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill
>>>>>> >> like their family before them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Karen worked in the supply room
>>>>>> >> Walter ran the Autoclave in Plant One
>>>>>> >> Don covered my job
>>>>>> >> during the say shift.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> For some reason
>>>>>> >> it was important to them
>>>>>> >> that they tell Mr. Newberry
>>>>>> >> that I was their cousin.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I never did figure that out
>>>>>> >> but it was cool with me.
>>>>>> >> I liked them all
>>>>>> >> they were down to Earth folks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> The day I moved in
>>>>>> >> I had my music playing loud
>>>>>> >> outside my window
>>>>>> >> was the river
>>>>>> >> and then Alabama.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I would never have imagined
>>>>>> >> how that area would look now
>>>>>> >> with the row of houses demolished
>>>>>> >> and with the Riverwalk below.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I was two floors up
>>>>>> >> but I still felt
>>>>>> >> like a mole
>>>>>> >> like a subterranean.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Wake up
>>>>>> >> it was Monday
>>>>>> >> I could hear Billy Teakson
>>>>>> >> blowing his horn in his pickup truck
>>>>>> >> down below.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Billy was an old school
>>>>>> >> Card and Blending room man
>>>>>> >> never late
>>>>>> >> sick or well he was on the job.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Slither down the stairs
>>>>>> >> so far so good
>>>>>> >> jump in and ride on
>>>>>> >> the the alternate universe
>>>>>> >> the factory.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> He never failed
>>>>>> >> to have a spare Budweiser
>>>>>> >> and a smoke
>>>>>> >> for the short ride to
>>>>>> >> Shadowville Spinning Mill.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> We'd get there in time
>>>>>> >> to stand around the parking lot
>>>>>> >> and catch a few words
>>>>>> >> with the crew.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Then the whistle would blow
>>>>>> >> and it was on your mark
>>>>>> >> sail through 12 hours of dream
>>>>>> >> in another land.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Grabbed a cup of rotgut
>>>>>> >> mill coffee
>>>>>> >> and then
>>>>>> >> in a determined stroll.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Up to the Bobbin Winders
>>>>>> >> and the upstairs Reels
>>>>>> >> to catch everything up quick
>>>>>> >> get the game going right.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Then down the elevator
>>>>>> >> to the Spinning room
>>>>>> >> sweat shop
>>>>>> >> a dozen ladies
>>>>>> >> smoking and yelling conversations.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Loud roaring
>>>>>> >> antique seeming machinery
>>>>>> >> all all points
>>>>>> >> no escape from
>>>>>> >> the chaos and thunder.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Get it all caught up
>>>>>> >> then down to the sub basement
>>>>>> >> to pick up the prize left for me
>>>>>> >> by Don
>>>>>> >> my first shift doppelganger.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Any time Don
>>>>>> >> skipped out early
>>>>>> >> and left everything
>>>>>> >> off the mark, it was no problem.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> He'd leave me a joint
>>>>>> >> at a certain spot
>>>>>> >> in the sub basement.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> The basement was
>>>>>> >> creepy enough
>>>>>> >> but the sub basement
>>>>>> >> seemed right out
>>>>>> >> of a horror movie.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Needless to say
>>>>>> >> I'd keep my head down
>>>>>> >> and would try to get out
>>>>>> >> of the sub basement quickly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I had been distributing
>>>>>> >> my broadsheets
>>>>>> >> among my co-worker friends
>>>>>> >> news of the day
>>>>>> >> with a twist.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> They were entertained
>>>>>> >> by my poetry
>>>>>> >> and comic strips
>>>>>> >> looking for themselves
>>>>>> >> in the lines on paper.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Pat, the personnel director
>>>>>> >> called me in her office
>>>>>> >> and put the kibosh
>>>>>> >> on my broadsheet.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> My poetry and art zine
>>>>>> >> had violated the strict
>>>>>> >> "No Distribution" policy
>>>>>> >> that no outside reading
>>>>>> >> was permitted inside the mill gates.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Since I had not been
>>>>>> >> aware of this policy
>>>>>> >> I apologized
>>>>>> >> and kept the broadsides
>>>>>> >> outside the gates from then on.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Absolutely
>>>>>> >> no foreknowledge
>>>>>> >> of what was coming next
>>>>>> >> taking one minute at a time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Getting from one minute
>>>>>> >> to the next
>>>>>> >> always in a hurry
>>>>>> >> caught up in the time
>>>>>> >> flashing by.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Not even giving a damn
>>>>>> >> or so I told myself
>>>>>> >> by that point in time
>>>>>> >> hoping for a speedy turnabout.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I never could have foreseen
>>>>>> >> twenty years later in 2005
>>>>>> >> standing in a crowd
>>>>>> >> watching the old mill in flames
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> I was living
>>>>>> >> in the worn out townhouse
>>>>>> >> at 3226 River Avenue
>>>>>> >> once part of a mill village.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> First week of the month
>>>>>> >> was always annoying
>>>>>> >> so much noise
>>>>>> >> as I tried to sleep.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> All day hearing Mr. Newberry
>>>>>> >> beating on the sides
>>>>>> >> of the houses with his cane
>>>>>> >> trying to collect his rent money.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Alone
>>>>>> >> in my upstairs office
>>>>>> >> writing my manifesto
>>>>>> >> in poetry and comic strips.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Right side duplex
>>>>>> >> next door to the Holden family.
>>>>>> >> Two stories overlooking
>>>>>> >> the dark green Chattahoochee.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> If I had the foresight
>>>>>> >> I would know sitting and waiting
>>>>>> >> was wasting precious time
>>>>>> >> the cruelty of moments.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Time can't be saved
>>>>>> >> like in a bank.
>>>>>> >> I thought I was biding my time
>>>>>> >> while I was losing everything.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> As the North Highland
>>>>>> >> sun blazed down.
>>>>>> >> And as the cool white moon
>>>>>> >> seemed to watch over it all.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> The big rooms
>>>>>> >> and empty house
>>>>>> >> suited my mood
>>>>>> >> my lonesome and blue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Looking out my upstairs window
>>>>>> >> dabbling on a canvas
>>>>>> >> not a clue
>>>>>> >> what was to come.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Walked down to Forte's Pharmacy
>>>>>> >> for a beer and some smokes
>>>>>> >> the place is long gone now
>>>>>> >> 35 years later.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Back then it was
>>>>>> >> the general store
>>>>>> >> where the locals stood around
>>>>>> >> shooting the breeze.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Although relatively close
>>>>>> >> the walk was winding
>>>>>> >> to get around
>>>>>> >> the far side of the factory.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Found a girl named Margo
>>>>>> >> she lived
>>>>>> >> a few doors down
>>>>>> >> from my place.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> She said she liked my music
>>>>>> >> but had thought Bob Dylan's song
>>>>>> >> was The Clash
>>>>>> >> but I found her naivete charming.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Took her out and played the game
>>>>>> >> but my heart
>>>>>> >> just wasn't in it
>>>>>> >> I never saw Margo again
>>>>>> >> after that night.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> At that time all seemed lost
>>>>>> >> just goes to show
>>>>>> >> I'm not much of a fortune teller
>>>>>> >> but kept hope alive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Many nights seemed like others
>>>>>> >> so I trudged
>>>>>> >> through the days
>>>>>> >> wrote poetry
>>>>>> >> through the night.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> Crossed my heart
>>>>>> >> and looked forward
>>>>>> >> to good luck
>>>>>> >> and happy days again.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> No happy ending
>>>>>> >> was expected
>>>>>> >> in the foreseeable future
>>>>>> >> just more of the same.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> -Will Dockery
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> ------------------------------
>>>>>> >> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
>>>>>> >> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/passage-through-ennui.html
>>>>>>
>>>>>> >> ***
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > Outstanding narrative/confessional poetry offering today....
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks again, Zod, although the resident trolls NancyGene and Pendragon will no doubt disagree.