QUAGMIRES IN THE SHADOWS

A droplet dangles from the grinder bench,
finally falling into that pool on the concrete,
mixing with the rusty water
streaked with swirls of oil.

Its sound is unheard in the factory’s silence,
the tomb of industrial dreams,
closed ages ago and left to decay.

The gaping holes in the emerald glass roof
allow winters showers to flood the cement,
another victim of financial death.

Quagmires of corporate design
left in the shadows
of the industrial carcasses they create.
Lives and hopes left in swamps created
out of dreams.

With the door pad locked the truth is sealed away,
one more statistic left in murky truth,
metal skeletons burying the pain
of those who thought this factory
was their rescue from poverty.

Sunk the bogs of bureaucracy
time will drown the heartache,
but the memories of the pain
will always rise to the mind’s surface,
being the marsh the heart dwells
in stagnant expectations.