Sleeping On Duty

Shut eyelids in duty-filled rooms Instant graveyards make of busy offices: A longing for robots to take over the brooms Or complete the suspended notices! Eyes are closed by wage-earners, In their old jobs seeming accursed learners: What, if their superiors’ sneaking visits happen? Nearly all confidential files riskily open! The secretaries’ bulging documents are sorting themselves out And the bursting queues outside can’t repress a shout Soon, angrily punching the air Because the whole after is unfair But only disfiguring the wind, not their problems Staring back at the Christians and not sparing the Moslems. They are all in there eyes courting deceiving dreams And three or four waiters are about to beget a frightening crowd. The sleepers’ snores betraying Satan’s hymns, Gradually authority acquiring, progressively loud. Sleeping on duty is detected, When silence still answers the affected Long after the bell for attention has been pressed For the taker of neglectful rest.