WORK: Pavement Saw Press Chapbook Award Series

by Dan Boehl

These poems first appeared LIT, Poetry East and Redivider. Here is a scintillating or7 Complete Strangers of Widely Varying Personality Characteristics are Involuntarily Placed in an Endless Kafkaesque Maze Containing Deadly TrapsAble to take only so much hip-hop and databases,I get some coffee and shoot-the-shitwith the co-workers there. Times like thisI think about that movie Cube.The best-worst movie I have ever seen,it’s about these people who wake up in a giant cube.Frantically they run around the cube’s identical roomsdiscovering each otherand getting bloodbathed by unforeseen trapsset by an unseen boss. It’s a test. If they work togetherthey live. They fall into the regularcharacter the soldier, the clown, the babe.Only the autistic guy lives.He actually likes the work of not gettingbloodbathed. Tomorrow, I’ll besomebody's boss. But todayI can confidently count on myselfas someone I would like.

Staple Bound

First published January 1, 2007