Five more dossiers slam down
beside you, bosses look stern
and flick through to spite you,
crossing off task after task:
appraisal target attitude,
shred your worries and feign
a false sense of gratitude,
scribble a signature, pretend
that you won't work here long.
It's just a stop gap, well,
one of two, perhaps after this
you'll be hired by another few.
Ten minute lunch, more bitter
than ***** tabasco juice
but ****** Mary and Jesus,
keep your mind on the salary
and you might get through
tapping and typing away
for a parasitic conglomerate
who barely remembers you.
Wolf down the freedom,
spark a fossil fuel fire on
your tobacconists’ anti-stress
breathing flute, clench
fists as you trudge through
the muck and the mire.
They laugh as you slump
over your desktop, under
the fifteen thousand word
count a day, hundreds
of calls and email favours
still you get payed for less
than half of your labour.
One look to the surroundings,
the folks in your office, step
back from your desk and hand
in your notice; sell your assets,
share your amenities,
cut off your phone-line,
don’t pay your licence fees.
At the door, the postman
struggles with bills and notices,
pushing and prying
more and more letters
the poor fellow moans as
you almost clap his efforts.
Gathering dust, your post
gets pushed up the stairs.
Knocking out your wellbeing,
this builds up in piles to
the height of your ceiling
until one day you awaken
with no gas or lighting,
nothing to quench or feed,
your rumbling stomach
near delirious being.
No more in awe, frightened
to express your distaste
for nine to five slavery
you pile a large steel cylinder
with technology and clutter;
letters and junk-mail literature.
Lighter fluid marinade you
feel empowered like
the folks at the gas board.
Pull out a matchbox
strike to a major chord.
Prepare for the roaring
of bureaucratic nonsense
burning and fizzling.
Strike one, the phosphorus
occupies your nostrils,
how sweet the smell
of keratin, and butane,
kerosine and hydrogen.
Strike two the match ignites,
the wind breaks your bindings,
you relax with such laughter
that the flickering orange
flame blows into a cinder,
smoke pining. Rig the pack
and pull out your portable
lighter, the whole box of
matches sets joyfully on fire.
Like witch over cauldron
you cackle and crack up
toss in the phosphorescent
rectangular prism to
the concoction which kept
you imprisoned for month
after month; year after year
you’d forgotten to fulfil
that dream, pull out your
mobile and text your queen
‘Let’s move to the mountains
and bask in the heat; revel in
rebellion. Reject, neigh, defeat
the notion that we must sit
at computers like digital sheep
that we can’t cross an ocean
on our own two feet.
We can grow our own grain
and cull our own wheat’
Whip out your tickets and jump
on the flight here lies a path,
come forth and fulfil it tonight.
'No amount of fire or freshness
can challenge what a man
will store up in his ghostly heart'
F. Scott Fitzgerald