Old Timer

[busker]

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Days stack into months
and overflow into years
like the sheafs of paperwork
on his desk, dogeared
and earmarked with long hours
of labor. He shudders at the oft-thrown
comment about a laptop
to house his files, with its new fangled
features and vulgar price tag.

His retirement fund saw a glacial
expanse over years of measly paychecks,
wiping grime from his hot, freckled cheeks
and icing his callused hands.
His limbs were lithe and cased
his bones in strong skin and sure spirit.
His eyes gleamed with rebellion.

He scoffs at the young -uns
with their soft, lumpy flesh
hunched over their desks,
bleeding their rage into tweets.
Choices dance at their fingertips,
of jobs, cars, lovers, genders....
He clutches a memory of his late wife
in his tattered wallet, big blonde hair
and gap-toothed smile---his one true love
post a montage of forgotten romances.

He glimpses a sign as he rubs tincture
into a deep wound---it reads, "paper cuts hurt,
work safely."

To me, more than the poetic merit of any specific line, it’s the overall picture that’s confusing
No modern day worker in a first world country (the blonde wife) would be a stranger to laptops. An archivist in government record keeping house might be, but we’re talking about more than sheafs of paperwork on someone’s desk.

The subject of the poem is a desk worker who scoffs at other desk workers “hunched over” their laptops. There is disdain at being “hunched over”, a sentiment echoed by more active workers, like those engaged in manual / physical labour. This is another incongruity. 

The third incongruity is the tincture being applied to a deep wound and what appears to be an ironical reference to paper cuts. Again, what work does the subject do?

The fourth incongruity is the age of the subject. Given the late wife and the being out of touch with the modern world, he should be several years if not a couple of decades into retirement. 

These prevented me from objectively assessing the artistic merits of the poem