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Work

Work never killed anyone,
Smithers said, a fair day’s
work for a fair day’s pay.

You continued to paint
the wall, your hand rising
and falling with the brush.

Tell that to those who died
in Auschwitz and other camps
or the archipelago of gulags
in Russia, you moodily replied.

Those were foreigners in
different times and different
places, he said, your average
person never died from the
labours of over work.

The paint was an awful green,
the wall was bland, above,
a window allowing dim light.

Some stilled died from labours
pushed to the limits, you sighed.

Smithers scratched his ass
and said, there’s always those
who’ve shirked and died.

You stood back watching
the paint dry, on a freshly
painted white glossed door,
was caught a fly, wriggling in
the stickiness, waiting to die.

poem by Terry Collett
Added by Poetry Lover
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