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Reflections on the Dole Queue

This poem describes a man's experience waiting in a dole queue each Monday, feeling grey-faced and slack while waiting. He recalls his past job on an assembly line and discusses conversations with his wife about issues of common sense, profit, and the lack of justice when some can buy their own way. The poem ends contemplating the stars on a black night with his wife questioning why they are "landed with a life before death."

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8 views2 pages

Reflections on the Dole Queue

This poem describes a man's experience waiting in a dole queue each Monday, feeling grey-faced and slack while waiting. He recalls his past job on an assembly line and discusses conversations with his wife about issues of common sense, profit, and the lack of justice when some can buy their own way. The poem ends contemplating the stars on a black night with his wife questioning why they are "landed with a life before death."

Uploaded by

Fera Sun
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Dole Queue

by Michael Hulse
Tom Paine at one time made
ladies’ corsets. And why not? I too had
a job once, I remember, on
an assembly line.

Seems a long time ago.


Every fucking Monday I stand here , grow
grey-faced, slack; I slouch. What do I
care about the law,

ain’t got the power? said


Cornelius Vanderbilt. Went to bed
last night, the wife says, common sense
doesn’t stand a chance

when you’re up against profit,


I says to her, you don’t want to say that
too loud, can we have the light off
now? It’s a rip off,

she says, the whole caper.


See what it said today in the paper?
Go to sleep, Glad, I says. Tom Paine,
refused a seat on

the stagecoach, was told by


the passengers to fear the Lord’s wrath. I
wonder at times what has become
of justice if some
can buy their own. I won’t
pretend to understand the world. I don’t.
One night we sat and watched the stars,
listened to the cars

on the carriageway back


of our house. The stars were bright, the night black.
Why, says Glad, are we landed with
a life before death?

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