From Experience

Work ethic?
I never stop working
on ethics, and asking, is it working,
aesthetically?
I know what I'm talking about
from experience,
in the past tense and future sense
I've done that and been aware
I was not cut out
from the same mold, jagged edges
don't pass QC, since praise
and raises don't have my name
on the double-check
dough and owe.

Oh, I've tried,
O how many I've plied,
bonafide with holdings
slanging sammies for many
new deli's, pounding dough,
hot and slow and the pizza parlor,
rise and shine, bussing and breakfast,
sticky sweet and greasy spoons
to rendezvous at posh hotels,
the grand in safe, directing your calls,
taking others vacations in reservations
before valet, all meager pay.

High rises collect
low lifes.
As assistant
two left arm(s), right hand, Girl Friday,
to many, many, many,
so many wealthy men,
that dropped the i
from the deal.

Oh the plethora of ends
that never met, quit and ceased,
fired, uninspired,
attendance was
unfortunately
required.

Dream jobs,
bookstores, cafe's library,
florist, sophist
tick-ated, métiered,
tending bar, mending egos,
pouring poisons, emptying passion-
flower, ugly and dry.
From fast food to soul food,
liquid lunches and
bouncers pulling punches.

Figuring it out, adding it all up,
frisk-ally, the audit shows
the bottom line, a negative balance,
in the red.
So before I'm dead
I will find the write
position,
the only occupation
worth my ply and in-
vocation,
my gift of storied salvation.


Image by Lewis Hine [Public domain or Public domain], Working on steam-pump c. 1920 via Wikimedia Commons.