In
the Office, part 1
I realize I am running away from and
towards my own life
Work is like a rapturous beloved blanket
of a woman
A stalker of sorts leaving me arsenic
post-it notes on my desk
With lipstick for turning the computer
on again
The monitors light up with the revving
body of software
Accounting system gyrating spreadsheets
to design manipulations
To cast aspersions about me to the other
programs that I have not gotten around to yet
As if I am a lascivious whore of an
accountant
The parade of circumstance of a salaried
position that does not pay me a dime more
For being here when I have no place else
to go
Statutory release at five p.m. and I am
like Red betrothed to Shawshank into the night
In an inescapable progression to see a
world out of what was, past haunting, institutionalized
The vision of my role as a father is kept
behind an idea professed into a courtroom
Debated, retorted victoriously and I
gave it all back to be here
Typing at eight p.m. on a Friday,
contemplating coming in most of the weekend
And Memorial Day Monday when the rest of
the office is on holiday
The pile of work is one I could ignore
if it was not so comforting like a luminous moon
Corporate lycanthrope to wipe my mind to
a beastly oblivion,
At least some membership of the
community will appreciate or
Profit from my diligence, the rest of my
time is spent
Reading, writing, sleeping, or perusing
the Internet
Avoiding the conundrum of current
socialization
I am vagabond.
Since Katrina I have lived a total of
seven months in a place I considered home.
The years stack of raising my infant
daughter to one and Boom
The days rolled across the bathroom
floor wet like heirloom pearls off clavicles
Boulders with the crucifix golden chain
her mother makes her wear to remind me of her
In a perverse attack against my notion
of God and love all in one
She most recently added a blue dog-tag
with her cell
As if in my allotment I will lose our
child or
A near nine-year old cannot remember a
phone number
The babble tower teeters and off to
Texas and then to Louisiana rural-jamboree
Accounting for water districts and
non-profits I get banned for thinking
The days of penalty petrify the
expectation of doing for a prescription of persistence
Like a Scopes monkey dancing for cow
chips
Survival is appreciating that this day
is one day closer to another day where exhale is possible
The chicken bones are in the gumbo. I am pulling them out one by one; stirring
for hours to months to years to one instance to allow a bite from this pot;
this homemade attended roux.
“Let me tell you something my
friend. Hope is a dangerous thing.
Hope can drive a man insane.”
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