Nine to five,
Day in, day out,
Not including the drive,
I long to scream and shout.
The clock ticks on;
My hands are numb,
And I need to use the john.
Not a moment to scratch the bum.
One day soon,
If I could be so blessed
By that man in the moon,
I’ll drop dead of cardiac arrest.
You can have my desk.
Annotations:
1. The traditional workday is often forty hours a week or more at nine to five each day hence my use of it in the poem as well as all year round like a merry-go-round that never ends. The commute if often brutal, adding so much more unpaid time to the work day. Many workers spend over an hour each way to simply commute to work taking away time from more meaningful activities. It is common to listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks to combat the meaningless and dull ache of the commute.
2. In myth, the man in the moon is said to have been banished to the moon due to working on the Sabbath. In the poem, the narrator pines for said banishment in lieu of continuing to work that job his entire being has come to loathe.
3. Moloch is either a Canaanite god or a ritual involving sacrifice as scholars are unsure as to the exact translation of the word. The poem alludes to the sacrifice of each human to the endless crunch of work. There is always more work to be done. It is unceasing. As each man dies, another is born to take his place on the endless merry-go-round of work.
4. A particular scene from the 1927 film Metropolis by Fritz Lang inspired this poem of the workers being sacrificed into the fiery inferno of the machine or temple of Moloch. Work as machine is stereotypical of the modern age. It is a common trope used to relate modern jobs to a mechanical approach in which the very human workers are an afterthought to profit of the company.
5. Many jobs in the modern world only allow a few spare moments for a bathroom break not taking into account normal human needs. The exact ten to fifteen minute break is so mechanical treating the living human more as machine than man. The needs of the company come before those of the very human workers despite slogans pasted on the company walls of the desire to put the workers' needs first. It is often nothing more than a lie to appease those seeking after greater human rights.
6. Many, most, do not have the luxury of working a fulfilling job. It is simply a paycheck to pay for the more fulfilling things in life such as a hobby, family, and friends. In the absence of those more fulfilling aspects to life, especially in places like the rust belt, what to people come to work for? Is it mere survival? That lack of meaning lies at the core of this poetry.
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