Posts for June 29, 2022 (page 5)

Perhaps we don’t get to choose the materials
And we won’t be getting any pottery lessons
No proverbial grandmother giving directions, advice  

So we sit, half hesitant half unsure
Facing the wheel and what we have come to accept as our fate
Compliance to life’s ways, no shame  

A chunk of something is then presented to us
And the potter’s wheel starts to spin           – at full tilt
The shapeless material bound to shoot out right about now  

A split-second decision, our hands to the dough
Without noticing, that’s when we start writing this letter
With a language only each of us understands  

We press the clay-like matter – tenderly
Give it time to take shape  
Using the spinning motion to its advantage  

Smooth edges, harmonious lines
Its charm not in perfection, but in oneness
Dignity made vase

And we let our primitive knowledge lead the way
For our unique purpose to find its way
all the while we witness our truth materialize before our eyes 

It’s my own breath in the forest
with these shadows and
echoes of our conversations,

feet pound the ground in ragged gasps,
a morning dove calls out.

Bathing in shadows of Orchard Branch,
sprinkles of sun glisten on gray asphalt,
I take a wrong turn, cobwebs in my face,

finding a power line over the trail we ran
and correcting my route,

I come down the goat path,
a frenzy of fabricated fear
there’s a bear in the bush,

we had laughed,
I laugh now.

dusk in the courtyard
slow the mind learn from the plant
blooms take centuries

1.
Memories were the fear.
How would I handle wearing reminders
of the trauma I just escaped?
How much I loved the job.
How no human being should ever
be cast to the roadside
bleeding out like I was.
How just one person
might have made a difference.

But they gave out shirts
for every building event
until half my wardrobe was them.
Then warehouses get dirty and those shirts become
the last clean clothes in the drawer.

2.
My coworker rolls up to me
at the new job, claiming
we won’t be getting off until 5:00pm.
He’s joking, of course–
never bought into his straight face,
but it still tickles the back of my mind.

The forklifts start at 1:00am.
The selectors who build the orders
start at 7:00.

There have been times when I go in
and the selectors are still working,
dragging their feet trying
to complete every order
under half-closed eyelids. 

That’s eighteen hours at least,
fuck sleep, do it again tomorrow;
reality’s hard crash.

If they can ask such extremes from them,
they can ask them of me.
Have I really found a better work environment?

3.
There was a guy hired the same day as me
and we were embracing the job together.
We confided in each other
about what we were getting ourselves into;
this brutal atmosphere.
I can make it work
because it’s still better than being personally targeted,
but I’m watchful. Never complacent.

My buddy left after two weeks.

4.
As a people,
we still aren’t learning. 

Somehow amongst monster orders
and the system’s fatal error crashes 
and missing or out of place product
and the clog of half-asleep/dead selectors
fighting to make rate,
the selectors
are also supposed to clean.

Here, they can take some ownership.
It’s not hard to not make a mess
but some of them don’t care.
They force their share of the burden
onto exhausted teammates
who give up trying to keep up.
The mess grows worse,
until a vice president sees it
and calls a meeting.

As a forklift, I don’t have to go,
but I hear the fall-out.
It’s because you won’t fucking clean
that we have to work Saturday!
You’re fault!
It’s all your fucking fault!

They come out dejected, dragging their feet,
angry, pissed off, hating.
A couple guys gravitate to me
because they see the shirt.
They worked the last job too.

Marks me safe
to complain to
about leaders who don’t give
a solitary shit about you.

5.
In the last week before vacation,
three people confided in me
that they were about to walk out,
two did,
and another is quitting at the end of the week,
people who maybe just started and realize their mistake;
others who have given years to the company.
One lady after thirty-five years of working there.
I wasn’t even alive when she started
and her loyalty was broken.

6.
There’s one girl who lives forty-five minutes away,
tacking an hour and a half of driving
onto time meant for eating, sleeping.

One guy never sees his kids anymore,
giving up coaching the little league team.

Another girl lives out of state and wants to move
here, for the overtime.
I fear for her. The uprooting of life
for people who don’t care about it.

Another guy has nothing but complaints,
his love for the job dead long ago
but still he puts in the effort.

Then there’s the guy who scares me most,
his innate politeness, his
always-looking-for-the-bright-side smile,
but I know because I’m the same way
that he’s a man
one fatal error away from shattering.

that this abandon all hope, ye who enter here job
might also be where others are landing
who are just trying to find a better working situation
and they guessed wrong;
caught in the loop of unsustainable effort.

They keep coming in every day
afraid to fight against the system,
to stand up for themselves.

7.
Any of these people
could be broken
like I was

could be dying
like I was

could want to lash out
like I did

could be everything
like me.

Except that person owns a gun.

8.
I was pushed to the brink of tragedy
and I survived.
I am no longer dead-souled.
I am not bound to new beginnings.
I can leave this place whenever I like.

And that’s where these t-shirts
become a reminder
of my self-care power,
my badge of honor.

It is not my duty to save this world
but I’ll do everything I can
until I decide I can’t.

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

The city of Holly once stood at the edge of the earth. Her backdrop, a peacock colored sky whose eyes shifted behind clouds and with the wind.

She was boundless.

Everyday at sunrise a new structure emerged from her rich soil.
Radiant gardens bloomed with bold, exotic flowers; they served as the city’s center.
Her people dressed in technicolor clothing and carried bright parasols.
Those who visited the city of Holly arrived as they were, and reportedly, somehow altered after experiencing her.
Their spirits lifted. Their hearts filled.
They were forever fastened to those who called her home.

A favorite pastime for Holly’s inhabitants was to line up at the diving board at the city’s west end and watch the sunset.
When the bright orange bulb turned to gold along the horizon, the people danced joyfully and dove into the ocean. Sea creatures large and small would playfully chase the people as they swam to the shore.

Only, nobody ever made it past the breakers.

The waves rolled towards the sand and engulfed all who tried to reach the shoreline.
The last creature would halt at an invisible wall, and the people were suddenly siphoned through a makeshift tube. The suction sent them spiraling, twisting, tumbling, until they plummeted  from the starry sky, and hit the peach colored sand with a great “Thud!” Onlookers unfamiliar with Holly’s magick couldn’t believe such things.

“My senses are deceiving me,” one passerby uttered on an evening stroll along the boardwalk.
“No,” a little girl replied.
The onlooker, stunned by the child’s definitive tone, wondered, “How do you know? You’re merely a child.”
Hearing his inner monologue, the little girl grew six inches right before his eyes, and haughtily replied, “You simply don’t believe it because it has not yet happened to you.”
The onlooker blinked, and after sticking out her tongue, the girl, giggling with delight, was suddenly small again, and peddled away on her tricycle.

The last group of divers splashed into the water, disrupting the sparkling pattern, sending it soaring through the air. They screamed with delight when they reached safety– in line at the beginning of those never-ending sunsets.

Life continued like this, until one day, the peacock feathers began to fade. Their luster dulled, and every so often, a color disappeared from the sky.
The changes, slow at first, transformed the once bright and inviting sky to its current dark, monochrome grey.

Mostly, the people ignored these changes.
They couldn’t stop shouting with glee,
falling into the ocean and emerging in the nighttime sky.
Distraction was  their way of life.

Over time, the crowds diminished, and along with them, so did their technicolored clothing and bright parasols, too.
The dancing ceased.
The diving board sat empty along the horizon, scarcely bouncing in the occasional breeze, only to greet its lonely reflection on the water’s flat surface.

The unoccupied buildings crumble against a lifeless sky littered with shredded black clouds. The once vibrant gardens now lie lifeless, replaced with heavy concrete barriers. The city’s center is now a pile of rubble.
A ragged vulture teaming with flies perches itself on an ancient statue of someone long forgotten to the passage of time.
The scavenger, now the city’s most recognizable feature,
picks at Holly’s bones, and savors the last bits of her delicate rotting flesh. 

The day for Holly’s revival looms long in the distance.
The roads that once led to her have disappeared.
The earth swallowed them whole, and replaced them with fields of wildflowers and  weeds. Those who observe her from afar can summon her vivid memories,
bringing her to life in an endless stream of subconscious existences. 

a golden brown roof carved into square tiles
shelters old bookshelves that touch the ceiling.
the owner pulls a book from the top shelf
and rearranges the stacks with effort,
knowing exactly where each book belongs. 

he makes me an iced peach latte.
each sip is more exquisite than the last.

The largest one, D, passed over during recent feedings,

hops out of the nest and totters across the down spout,

out and back, out and back, hopping back into the nest.

The smaller fledgeling, E, remains. Still, except for accepting

food from Harmony, who returned this year 

to our backyard paradise: trees, garden, worms, mate.

His partner, absent now, nesting the next clutch, their season’s third.

Harmony, an albino, garners all our attention, the only robin discernible 

among all robins. My mate, who has never loved birds nor nests,

suddenly fascinated by fascinations that had never garnered his attention,

places a movie camera to capture the fledgeling’s first flight, holds 

binoculars to his eyes and gesticulates like a young boy, his joy bright. 

Any minute now! he exclaims over and over. He is vigilant all afternoon. 

Harmony swoops in to feed, keeping further away from the nest

each trip so that D has to reach further out to feed. A very good strategy. 

Then he flies out to a low swinging wire in sight of D. E remains nestside.

D balances out the distance of the downspout one last time, then lifts up

and out, into the lawn below. Harmony flies close, guiding 

D to the shrubs and trees at the edge of our lawn, where D hop-flies

into the lower branches. E hasn’t stepped out of the nest yet

and we are due to visit grandchildren, so Mr. Man leaves the camera

on for the last 26 minutes filming, this his thrid hour, and we leave. 

Upon our return, Mr. Man checks, and E actually fledged 10 minutes after we left. 

Caught on film. Only one trip out the downspout before lifting off. O good, 

he says to me, Harmony can tend them easier with both

in the same trees, even though the camera lens couldn’t catch that. 

But I catch the excitement and relief in my mate’s voice.  

Pansies in my garden,
pale/spindly/forlorn
beneath dahlias’ shade.
Into the compost bin
I send them,
faintly blooming,
dark soil clinging to their roots.

with the letter R:
rhubarb, ruta-
baga, rho-
dodendron, Garamond.

Fancy coffee and books.
Giftcards and Christmas cash.
Dopamine welcome.