Apollo in his cottons

A paragon of the male form,
Apollo in his cottons,
Sits stooped over a boxy office desk,
His head floating in the sweat of his hands.

The bright haze of a computer screen,
Bleaches his skin,
Already speckled with ink and tobacco.
And the hairs of his head,
Now fill the cracks in the carpet tiles below.

PowerPoints and cubicles,
Are all he knows,
And vertical blinds and tea breaks,
And the four walls that make his world,
In the daylight hours.

And the coffee scum that has become caked,
To the roof of his mouth,
Now strangles out every word,
That is not cost-effective,
Or productive or efficient or blind or toneless or dead.

And his imagination was crushed to a pulp,
Between the pages of a GCSE maths book,
And his eyes were dug out of his face,
By lines and lines of twisting jargon,
And the sun that throws itself down upon him,
Is only there to mark his working hours,
And his hands are numbed to everything,
But the square keys of the keyboard,
And the cold grip of money,
And he fits and he works,
And that’s all that matters,
In his monochromatic world,
Stuck in full cycle,
Spiralling downwards,
To death.