Thoughts On An Empty Factory At Night Poem by Patrick O'Reilly

These places are always scary at night.
Dark and demonic,
Grey and grimey,
Forlorn and lonesome.
So cold and empty.

Are there ghosts?
Of men who paid rent, fed babies
Drove autos, loved women?
I've been told they haunt places
Where they are owed something,
Where they suffered and strived,
Laboured and laughed,
Working elbow to elbow, day in and out,
With men in the same $2 shoes.

You can hear them wail on the wind.
The ghost whistle screams,
Warning them to keep working or return to their graves.
Stay in your graves!

No, they never stay.
They won't be told anymore.
They march, one by one,
Like miners coming out of the shaft,
And go their separate ways
Or dash to the nearset pubs in small, chummy groups.

This factory, once so alive, shut down fifty years ago,
Leaving these men tired and hungry,
At once angry and bored,
Completely hopeless.
Too old to work, too young to die.
Their sacrifices padded a rich man's pockets one more time.

It is just business makes such a lovely good-bye.

These places are always scary at night,
But they are more frightening in the daylight.