I Am Waiting

Poem of the Week

I am waiting


for the cash register clerk at the local grocery store to put down her frock and walk through the automatic sliding doors and outside to join a revolution not yet started

for the rural postal carrier that drives a gold Oldsmobile to dump mail sacks from his trunk and drive away to find a revolution not yet started

for the local warehouse workers of a large national home improvement chain to get off their fork lift trucks and put down their shipping label guns and grab their still full lunch buckets and head out liberated into a revolution not yet started

for the college students to drop their text books and defy the authority that they should naturally question and leave their classrooms to join a revolution not yet started

for the men in their cups down at the local tavern to put their bottles down and arise stumbling from their rickety barstools lurching into the light of day and into a revolution not yet started

for the construction workers to lay down their tools and remove their orange safety vests
for factory workers to shut down their machines and flood the exit gates like children on the last day of school and yip and yell in jubilee joining a revolution not yet started

for the miners to come forth from the bowels of the earth and leave their hard hats and picks in piles at the mouths of the rich man’s caves and without washing their faces smile to join a revolution not yet started 

for doctors and nurses to remove their stethoscopes and abandon their blood pressure cuffs and throw off their white lab coats and stand up to a healthcare system they know is broken and join a revolution not yet started

I am waiting. I am waiting
for line cooks to shut down their grills
for truck drivers to kill their engines 
for office workers to unplug their copy machines

I am waiting for the garbage men to leave the garbage to collect itself 
for janitors to lay down their brooms and leave their dustpans behind
and for municipal workers to abandon their municipalities and walk away from the bureaucracy to join a revolution not yet started

for clouds to let go their parasails and come crashing down to earth in great kamikaze ponds and for the trees to shake loose their limbs and roar with the wind bringing tenor to the song of a revolution not yet started 

for mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters to join hands with neighbors near and far 
for songwriters to hoist their guitars
for poets to pick up their pens
for painters to lift their brushes 
for saxophonists and trumpeters to toot their horns and join a revolution not yet started 

I am waiting for one voice to cry into the night and for one shred of hope and for the sun to awaken the arsonists to light the fires that lead the anarchists to rally the punks and unite the hippies to invite the queers to bring their rainbows and march in solidarity as one in a revolution not yet started 

I am waiting

©️Dan Denton 2025

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A herd of Poets at a Waffle House late at night