"Sunbeam" by Charles Bukowski

The following poem can be found in the book "The Flash Of Lightning Behind The Mountain" by Charles Bukowski. Published in 2005 by Ecco (Harper Collins), this book contains previously uncollected poetry and prose from his later years. From January 1949 to March 1951, Bukowski worked at the "Sunbeam Lightning Co" in Los Angeles, packing lighting fixtures for shipment. It was certainly not an easy job and the repetitive nature of work on the assemly line combined with intolerable working conditions strictly controlled by the foreman, pushed the workers to the limit. Bukowski didn't take long to spoil these ideal conditions for reaching the productivity targets set by the company. Here is how it all started... 

Sunbeam
By Charles Bukowski

sometimes when you are in hell
and it is continuous
you get a bit giddy
and then when you are tired beyond being
tired
sometimes a crazy feeling gets a hold of
you.

the factory was in east L.A.
and of the 150 workers
I was one of only two white men
there.
the other had a soft job.
mine was to wrap and tape 
the light fixtures
as they came off the assembly line and
as I tried
to keep pace the
sharp edges of the tape
cut through my gloves and into my
hands.
finally
the gloves had to be thrown
away
because
they were cut to shreds
and then my hands were completely exposed
each new slice like an electric
shock.

I was the big dumb white boy
and as the others
worked to keep pace
all eyes were watching to see
if I would
fall behind.

I gave up on my hands
but I didn't give up.

the pace seemed impossible
and then something snapped in my
brain and I screamed
out the name of the firm we were all slaving
for, "SUNBEAM!"

at once
everybody laughed
all the girls on the assembly line and
all the guys too although
we still had to struggle to keep up with
the work flow.

then I yelled it
again:
"SUNBEAM!"

it was a total release for me.

then one of the girls on the
assembly line yelled back,
"SUNBEAM!"

and we all
laughed
together.

and then as we continued
to work
a new voice
would suddenly call out from
somewhere,
"SUNBEAM!"

and each time we
laughed until
we were all drunk with
laughter.

then the foreman,
Morry,
came in from the other
room.

"WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON IN
HERE? THAT SCREAMING HAS GOT
TO STOP!"

so then, we stopped.

and as Morry turned away we saw that the
seat of his pants was jammed up in the crack of
his ass, that fool in control of
our universe!

I lasted about 4 months there
and I will always remember that day,
that joy, the madness, the mutual
magic of our
many voices
one at a time
screaming
"SUNBEAM!"

sometimes when you are in
a living hell
long enough
things like that sometimes happen
and then
you're in a kind of heaven
a heaven which might not seem to be
very much at all 
to most folks
but which is good enough
especially when you can
watch someone like Morry
walk away with the seat of his pants
jammed up in the crack of his
ass.