random notes, annual national
night workers' appreciation day

shouldn't we appreciate national night workers
tonight ?
let's write a poem
in the daytime
while nightworkers sleep in the sun
that's nice
that's special
special enough
for a national nightworkers appreciation day

herbert kornfeld is sleeping
after his graveyard shift
down at world hq's import export wholesale conversation warehouse
snoring gently through well-earned
sun bright
sun day
dreams
a poem written on his behalf
dark infrared poignant pictures
he may never know he's in it

let's celebrate at Daddy Z's
pickin' parlor on the edge of town
fingers flicking frets faster than sound
the long appalachian howl
of east tennessee
shatters
a staccato blur
flashing the nightworkers
into still stanzas
verbal strobes constructing
visible profundity at Daddy Z's
pickin' parlor on the edge of town

nightworkers (not dayworkers)
guzzle booze, nicotine, possibility theory
gasoline, billiard games, rank speculation
night things belong to the nightworkers
a slow warp speed
speeding toward
arc lights on Gastonia Avenue

you get more than you bargain for, and less, at night
whispers echo louder longer, howling in the hangtime
clocks slow down before they stop
at closing time
but don't we all
we and the nightworkers
screaming into a scrumptious dawn
as if every night
is national night workers' appreciation day
they deserve a nightworkers nightwords poem
and we're just the guys to give it to them


by the boy photons