The man stood in his thick red coat and sore shiny feet, square in the threshold, charged with a ready welcome and ruddy face.

He stood with no name but the one assumed for him and, unbeknown to him, inherited from his predecessor who too stood in a similar red coat and sore shiny feet and with his own style of smile.

He stood until he fell one March morning, in his thick red coat and his sore shiny feet and with a heart that failed to live up to the responsibility that came with the threshold and the coat and the shiny feet and instead chose to take its rest.

The man stood in his thick red coat and sore shiny feet square in the threshold, charged with a duty to smile with an open face, with no name but the one assumed for him and, unbeknown to him, inherited from his predecessor.

And he stood.
And he smiled.
As charged.

we sit in our gray cubicle
(or corner office if you prefer)
use up days months years
even decades of life
to reach the dream
oh, that elusive dream
dangling about in the unknown
forever in the future
forever out of reach
forever a mirage

You Nasty Peoples
You Middle and Lower Class
You Labour Class

First you asked for Education
We gave you

Then you asked for Jobs
We gave you

Then you started getting salary
Because we gave you

Then you requested pay hike
We accepted and gave you

Then you asked for health benefits
We gave you – 'health allowance'

Then you asked for other allowances
We still gave some of them

Then you asked for promotion
We gave you

Then you started asking for bonus
We gave you

Then you asked for retirement pension
We gave you

Then you asked for retirement gratuity
We gave you

Then you asked for death gratuity
We gave you

We noticed, You always demand
You open your mouth more often

We accept your right to live
But you live to ask for rights

You always try to gain
You always try to bargain

You feel yourself very smart
But we are also not fools

If you further dare to ask for more
We will ******, all the things we gave

Slowly slowly, One by one, Step by step
We have many ways to deal with you

We have divided, we have ruled
We will divide and we will rule

First we will ****** death gratuity
Then retirement gratuity and pension

This process will go on and on
Like a ball rolling on and on

The more you demand
The more we ******

No you can't equate yourself
With our emoluments and positions

We are the Boss, We are special
You are the slave, nothing special

We will enjoy what we want
You have to bear what we want

Never try to act so smart
We are much smarter than you

Note it Down, Make it clear
You are the Beggar, We the Giver

We have the Power, We have the Money
We have the resources and the Law
And this is not so Funny.

This is a re-post of "All Change at Zima Junction."  This morning I turned in my keys after some forty years of herding cattle (metaphorically), seventeen of them with this institution.  I am unemployed for the first time since I was five or so and was set to toddling out to the chicken yard every evening to gather the eggs in an old Easter basket.  My mother said that the rooster often chased me and made me cry, but I don’t remember that.

And now - what adventure does Aslan have next for me?

The first book I bought upon returning home from Viet-Nam was the Penguin Modern European Poets paperback edition of Yevtushenko: Selected Poems.  That 75-cent paperback from an airport bookstall in San Francisco is beside me on the desk as I write.

                                     All Change at Zima Junction

                            For Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1932-2017

Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction
Changes lives; nineteen becomes twenty-one
With hardly a pause for twenty and then
Everyone asks you questions you can’t answer

And then they say you’ve changed, and ignore you
The small-town brief-case politician still
Enthroned as if he were a committee -
He asks you what you are doing back here

And then you go away, on a different train:
Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction

                           “I went, and I am still going.”1

1Yevtushenko: Selected Poems. Penguin,1962

I’m no longer a fighter,
At least not the one you once knew;
The world isn't getting brighter;
Just a little bit darker.
Friends seem farther,
Demons just a little bit closer.
With my thinking,
There’s never closure;
I can’t ever find my way.
For in the dark of night,
I seek the light of day.
Gone down the wrong road,
I'm not a prince, just a toad;
Buried beneath,
Stuck in Morse code.
Thought I could go god mode;
Super strength, all-powerful.
I thought I was incredible,
But I'm no Bruce Banner.
I thought I was invincible,
But I'm no Iron Man.
More like the Metal Man,
Meddling in affairs.
‘Cept life's not fair.

Already placed in battle,
Rifle running rattle,
I’m training like a soldier;
Thoughts crowding like cattle,
Thought I could hold her;
She's all I can think about.
Can't get her out of my head.
Used to feel alive,
Now, I'm feeling dead.
This one-sided attraction,
Self-doubt, large fraction,
Chemical chain reaction;
Rejection, hit like a wall,
Made me fall;
Like first king, Saul,
Can't stand tall.
Am I a man?
Can't hold her hand.
It's like Wendy and Peter Pan,
Lost in Neverland.
I feel paralyzed,
No vice vision;
Fast forward,
Rewind.
No direction,
I'm blind.
This is my body.
This is my mind.
Muscle-memory mimicry,
Chained down,
I thought that I was free.
Guard up,  
I thought that I could be me.

You see,
I used to be a fighter.
But I'm tired of fighting.
I should've enlisted,  
Here, I never existed.
This story's end,
Happily never after;
This decade's end,
Turning twenty-one;
My match has ended.
And I still haven't won.
Fire's been extinguished.
Fuel tank's empty.
No more will in me.
The pressure's killing me.
Bout to go off,
Time's ticking to two;
These gloves, I'm hanging up,
I'm finally through.
Points don't matter,
The price ain't right.
I ain't a Mad Hatter,
I’m down, no flight.
Insanity isn't my vanity;
I feel like I've lost my humanity,
I'm not trying to be a tragedy,
In all actuality,
I've reached my capacity;
Anxiety caused a calamity,
And, now, this is my reality.

A fighter no more,
I lost the war.
Yeah, I ain't Thor;
I may have lost my roar,
But my legacy leaves a lore.
Unworthy of the hammer,
I feel like I'm in the slammer.
Outcast like the Martian from Mars,
Stone walls and iron bars;
They say that I should  
Reach for the stars.
You’ll reach Jupiter in no time,
Just get on the grind, and climb.
They say that my writing's good;
But good was never enough.
Just gotta act tough, and
You'll get through the rough stuff.