Garret Schuelke's "Cement Dust Blues" borrows the shape of a blues song, repeating each opening line before a rhyming third line, to describe a miserable shift at a cement job. The speaker is worn out and in pain. He says he feels "practically dead" and longs to be back in bed. Over the five stanzas, things keep getting worse: he is punched in the stomach and inhales dust, coughs so hard he nearly bites his tongue, is told to work overtime just as he's leaving, and finally gets burned by dust on his skin.
The one calm moment is the ship arriving at sunrise, a brief shared look at something bigger before the shoveling resumes. The mood is weary and grumbling, but there's dark humor in it too. The blunt language ("Holy shit, does it burn") and the comment that such hours "must be a crime" give the complaint a plain, honest tone. The repetition makes the day feel like it just drags on.