Prayer

God, I need a job because I need money.

Here the world is, enjoyable with whiskey,

women, ultimate weapons, and class!

But if I have no money, then my wife

gets mad at me, I can’t drink well,

the armed oppress me, and no boss

pays me money. But when I work,

Oh I get paid!, the police are courteous,

and I can have a drink and breathe air.

I feel classy. I am where the arms are.

The wife is wife in deed. The world

is interesting!, except I have to be

indoors all day and take shit, and make

weapons to kill outsiders with. I miss

the air and smell that paid work stinks

when done for someone else’s profit, so I quit,

enjoy a few flush days in air, drunk, then

I need a job again. I’m caught in a steel cycle.

Copyright Credit: Alan Dugan, “Prayer” from Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry. Copyright © 2001 by Alan Dugan. Reprinted with the permission of Seven Stories Press.

Source: Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry (2001)