THE MACHINIST'S MONOLOGUE

The room is silent, only these thoughts
inhabit it's unpeopled stillness.
The machines are turned off, the long day done. Now
finally, blissfully, I can relax.
There is actually time
to listen to the clock ticking;
to study the nude model on the calendar,
her blonde hair so pale in comparison to the blue sea.
A distant islet rises out of the horizon
and as I gaze at that distant mound -
so faint, so misty, in it's ethereal splendour -
I will myself there in the midst of that solitude
where there is no clocking-in machine,
no constant BANG BANG BANG assaulting my ear drums
day-in and day-out, while my yearnings flow
a million miles from this concrete prison
with it's electric and steel torture implements.
Five-thirty on a Friday evening is all I live for.
It brings such eagerly awaited blissful reprieve
from a life sentence of dull monotony.

Often, it seems a supercilious mindset is mine
for I crave so much more from life
than do my co-workers, most of whom appear content
to slog without question under blinding strip lights,
while cheerfully discussing next year's
eagerly anticipated holiday in the sun
that they've been saving for all year.
Such enthusiasm stuns my mind into vacancy,
makes me despise even more
this artificial environment that sums up my existence:
the sight of coveralls and eye protectors, the constant din
of cutters slicing through sheet metal - all combine
to subdue my spirit into aching despair.
Being so cut-off from tree and field, from Nature's open spaces,
reminds me how unattainable my own dreams are:
these most private of deeply-felt hopes and aspirations
that keep me going, that I feel unable to share with anyone.
Yet, as if to taunt me, they intensify daily
into a virtual reality that I can no longer live without.
But alas, these glowing images are nought but vain fantasy!
They simply fade away and I find myself back in this dismal place.

Oh how I long to lock these doors and walk away
from the future I see beckoning more ominously each day -
a lifetime of wrestling with cold steel, followed only by retirement and then death.
But what if I should attempt to break the mould
of family tradition and follow my dream?
What then?
Would the machinist turned latter-day Hippie
regret his farewell to society and descend
into isolation-induced madness?
The choice appears a simple one:
stay and stagnate, or find the courage to embrace the unknown.

This was never the role I envisaged for myself
when a younger me used to sing
of freedom of spirit and escape from convention,
while strumming on his brother's guitar
with nimble fingers and an innocent heart
that had no notion of toil or reality checks.
In those days, they were just songs - pleasing melodies
accompanied by beautiful words
that planted within me the seeds of idealism.

And those seeds have been growing ever since,
transforming into a kind of crazy hope
that there could be a better life out there
if I only knew how and where to look for it.
And how long I've mentally searched!

But, today, I seem to have lost my singing voice
and my quest has gone cold and died,
along with the last rays of youthful hope.

There is no wild distress. It has been
more a gradual surrender to inevitability:
a succumbing to the hopelessness and subservience
of a severely limited self-image...