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