To all concerned:
bathroom breaks
will now be timed.
Whether number one or two,
bathroom events
and cigarette breaks
and private phone calls
and coffee sips
will no longer be subsidized
by MacManus Group salary installments.
For any instance
of failing to earn your employer liquid currency,
please punch the clock in
and then out.
This also includes time
spent ready company memos.
That will be all.
Back to work.
(because of Danny)
Well, great.
That little fact
you provided about classical theatre
just invalidated one of my older poems,
already published in a collection
back in an earlier decade.
Now
I am going to have to go around
to all the people
who bought a copy
– and the many more
to whom I gave one
to pay back a loan –
and go to page forty seven
and cross out the offending lines
or perhaps tear out the page
or better:
place a sticker
with a new poem
with improved lines
replacing the soon-to-be excised material.
While I’m at it
there may be some other updates
to include in that old volume.
The sexual politics of
"Do Your Momma Like a Two-Bit Whore"
could maybe use some freshening up
and there’s a typo on page seventy one
(alabaster to Al’s a bastard)
that always bothered me.
This could be a really good thing:
digging into the old texts
and updating them
for the new millennium.
This isn’t gonna be so bad
after all.
Thanks a lot, Danny.
Seriously.
What?
That’s not how you spell theatre?
Fuck you, Danny.
Please join us
for our regularly scheduled
Lunch and Learn,
during which Marketing will unveil plans
for the latest product offering
from an innovative collaboration between
Real Estate Developments and
Home Improvement.
By promoting sheds
under current economic conditions
as portable housing units
– mobile homes sans mobility –
we intend to redefine property ownership
in the twenty first century.
The deluxe shed
called the Imperial Bedroom
will be vigorously promoted
as the only way to live.
The campaign slogan
"Every home an empire!"
should yield immediate return
from a hungry and downsized consumer base.
Details to follow in the presentation
with an extended Q&A
as to how the public
will be convinced to invest in this exciting
and renumerative initiative.
Refreshments will be served.
I just saw
on Thesaurus dot com
that three of the synonyms for Monthly
are Daily, Weekly and Annually.
This information has changed my world
in very dramatic ways.
When assignments are due tomorrow
I now know
I can take up to a year
to deliver them.
Work has just gotten so much easier.
Also, better paying
because I can now receive my yearly salary
seven times a week
(though perhaps, I shouldn’t be disappointed
if they only pay out
for workdays).
I’m about to get a lot older
and a lot fatter
since I’ll be receiving birthday cake
with every meal
– and I’ll be able to see
Game of Thrones Season Seven
so much faster
since the new episodes
will be released every single day.
The girls I like
in middle school
will become legal all the quicker
but period sex
will be a lot less frequent.
I cannot wait
for this brave new world
opening up
because of the new terms and conditions on time
defined over at Thesaurus dot com.
Tomorrow, everything changes.
Only…
tomorrow is a year away.
Damn.
You keep talking about the same things
over and over
time after time
because you’re stuck.
You cannot envision another thing
to speak about
so you repeat yourself
and you bore everyone
not that it’s necessarily a bad thing
but definitely
it’s something you should look into.
You’re wearing grooves into your brain, though,
simply circling the same stories
every damned day.
You’re probably missing some obvious logic leaps
in this way,
strategies out of your circuitous mind paths.
Again, it’s not so unique what you’re doing
but if you could stop it
if you could fixate on something new,
you’d probably be better off.
Obviously, you do you
just as you have all this time
but be aware,
there’s something else for you to try
and really, in your redundancy,
can you afford to avoid any way
that might rectify the situation?
This is the counsel you didn’t ask for.
This is the advice you could live without.
These are the decisions
that are separate from your experience
and might not speak to your current situation
but nonetheless impact on your life
immutably.
This is what you get
when you live in a society
where authority is respected
and leaders are out of touch
and men – fucking men –
are always ready to shove
their two cents into anything
that stopped moving for two seconds.
You will be told what to do
how to handle the situation
and how to feel in the process.
It is the way of things now
same as it ever was.
You will take the two cents
whenever it’s been provided
and you will like it.
There may come a day
when your youth will pass away
and you have to decide
whether or not it is time
to abandon your loved ones.
You will still care for them
of course
but you cannot always be responsible
for their idiotic actions
or their indefensible choices.
You may see
– and soon –
that you have to cut your family loose.
It won’t be easy.
It won’t be elegant.
It will fill you
with guilt and shame and anger
that they are too stupid
to make the right choices
making you unable to bear
to watch them
go down their own terminal roads.
You will have to drop your parents
because they are so dumb
that they endanger themselves
with their every unsafe decisions.
You will have to drop your parents
because they’re unwise.
You will have to drop your parents
because you can’t watch the train wreck
they’re about to make
of the rest of your lives.
You’ll be powerless to stop them
but unwilling to view the carnage.
It’s gonna happen
sooner than you think
so if you have the spleen for it
prepare your goodbyes
right away.
I need to print out
every last one of my poems
for the coming apocalypse.
After civilization crumbles
and the lights go out
all my computer screens will be
like unto shit
so I need to have a way
to entertain the masses
come Armageddon.
For when the governments are broken
and the militias arise
and the buildings fall and diseases mutate
– and don’t get me started on the mutants –
when everything’s down the toilet
what will we need more
than silly poems about the First World?
How will our souls survive
without our DVDs and MP3s
and all the other avenues of creativity?
After doomsday,
in the arts-free future,
the half-asses poet will be king,
and I need to prepare
for my eventual role.
So my poems must be printed
and then laminated
and then maybe locked away
in case of firestorm.
Anyway
I’m getting prepared
for an ugly future
with the best defense of all:
optimism.
The gorgeous Slav
at the table beside me
tried to ignore my stares
but I was not subtle.
Eventually she turned to me,
stared blankly until I looked away
and returned to her conversation.
I wanted to tell her
not to be that way
that I was not a creep
that I wasn’t a bad guy
that she didn’t need to send me off
and we could maybe find something
in each other worth knowing.
I wanted to say more
but she wouldn’t look my way.
She didn’t have the time
or inclination
or the politesse to fake an interest.
I wish she’d have faked interest
in me.
After that meal
I never saw that Slav again
so far.
In my efforts to woo,
I have spent some time struggling
to describe you.
I want to be able to explain
why I am so attracted.
Obviously you are striking:
your hair
your face
your eyes
– I hope it’s not so simple
as that you’re wonderfully built –
but it’s not just what nature handed you.
Your fashion, style and temperament
also keep me thinking of you
(the word “you” keeps coming up.
Do I sound single-minded? Certainly).
I love your nerves
how you stutter and jangle
through a conversation.
Your way with words is wacky
and you seemed worried
that you might not be wonderful
which is patently absurd.
I’m astonished and intrigued by everything I do know
and I really want to learn
a whole lot more
if for no other reason
than to better woo you.
jonberger 