Thursday, September 5, 2019

Beautiful Sunshine

My posture they say is like Cagney’s in White Heat,
and I have a tendency to explain it all like Edward G
Robinson, or any schmuck from New York, smooth, fast
as a missed deadline; someone even thinks I look like
Clint, when he squints to cut the glare of Tuscany’s sun,
hand on his gun, working a cigar between the hinges

of his mouth. It’s easy to imagine one’s life hinges
on how pretty you are, how you carry yourself in the heat
of one's complexes: like a dumb moth to the sun
no bigger than a nitelite. If I enter the bank in my G-
string homewear, will security  reach for his pistol like
you see cops do when they get an inkling things are fast

coming undone? Will she, at the teller window, a fast
and happy counter of coin, refuse to serve me? It hinges
on how I bear myself, since my finger like
an appendage of nose would be uncouth, even in the heat
of my living room, and especially were I wearing a G-
Man's holster at my heart, gun at my nipple, the sun

shining where the sun was meant to shine, a new sun
to fire up the inner life of molecules, so small, so fast
you can’t see them at night. I viewed their ugliness; Gee,
I said, you mean we’re nothing but these hinges
swinging in time on the lovely gooeyness in heat?
They squiggled, thoughtless, fevered snot-like

in their puddle. Doors unhinged become roofs like
toads in the garden crawl under to escape the sun
our learned claim will create the kind of lethal heat
that all life is threatened, and we'll have to act fast
if we want to breathe like our forebears did. So much hinges
on our definition of beautiful: how many strands of ge-

nomes have met their demise? Some say, adapt: G
is for Garden; new technology! It will save us! Like
help us survive. I love tooling that manufactures hinges
so perfect, you know, they make no sound. Let the sun
do what it does! Some say, "nature doesn't work fast,
there's time to think of a cooler word than “heat."

If the heat gets out of hand, as dizzying as the G-
force of a rolling jet, we'll just have to fast a lot, like
not eat. It all hinges on us; let's not blame a blinding sun.

Friday, April 12, 2019

Bad News


The boss has nothing but total respect for you
She says so with a smile even a hand on your shoulder
She has never not cherished your commitment
Your infectious energy offered as devotion to her
Really let’s be honest not the corporation itself
The good boss who talks with you and understands
When you’re having a day or someone you love
Is in a particular way that simply interferes so
Long as it’s not long-term or utterly sapping
Since and you know this without any ambiguity
Our firm is not a charity nor a slave-driving enterprise
But like any normal concern in the business of business
We seek solely to make a profit while giving
Generously to the many groups dedicated to the less
Lucky we certainly cannot abide employees who fail
In separating the personal from the professional
Which HR views as a form of extreme selfishness
As many others depend on that one employee
To fit perfectly into the machinery of commerce
Or like any system with gears and sprockets
One dubious part slows the whole operation
And puts a burden on the others not to mention
On the boss who only wants to keep smiling
With her hand on your shoulder when you tell her
How it happened that you’ll miss the deadline
Even though you’re deeply sorry to bear the bad
News at the most inopportune time but sadly
And sorry to say your kid got run over
And you’re likely to need at least a day or two

Bosses Think They’re Gardeners


All my bosses had bosses
Who had bosses or were
The boss of bosses, and all
My flowers are for the boss

Just up from me, since he
Provides opportunities that
Squeeze my time of its being
Poem-maker, The Boss,

And not without mad dreams
Devious plots to unseat him
As if my only were to evaporate
All day without thinking

About what the boss thinks
Of sailboats and sunshine
From my coworkers and I who
Keep the clocks in the corner

Of our eyes our ears attuned
To the bootsteps synched
To our motions-cum-brand
For what the topmost skims

Buying it up as far from us
As not to suffer himself
Our impossible dreams full
Of the real awakenings

As if to give nature a say
As with colors brightest by day
In the aura of their equations
And sums that fail to include

Where one stands on the ladder
Against what the ladder leans
Who is up and who is down who
Is condemned to turn a frown

Since that is what grows in soil
Cultivated so mercilessly well
Seeking that glow at the top
Rising thin and crooked reaching

Amid others pruned by the boss
Trimmed and trained to shape
What pleases him since he’s
The one doing all the watering is

How he puts it when you push back
Scratch your line in the dirt
Not a goddamned fucking inch
More means nothing to him

So what now what will you do
Uproot walk off into hunger
Rob the local branch jump
Into a volcano

How will you pay the bill
Repair the breach where your line
Crossed you out
Exposed your will at the service

Of the boss’s dirty work
You’re the dirt to be removed
New saplings incubating
To be squeezed of their vitals

A jungle load of new saplings
Younger than you better
Than you will ever be better
You start fixing things

Mending and patching and stitching
Things back together if you
Want a blanket when you sleep
If you want more than onion