Salesman We report out monthly to the team, So you don’t have to wonder where you stand. If you’ve had bookings, let’s say sixty grand, Then you’re a sales machine and reign supreme; If, however, business has been lean And you have spent the whole month pounding sand And tiptoe in with nothing in your hand Then they quit celebrating and turn mean. So I can be a hero or a bum Based on my job’s inherent ebb and flow. It’s been half each over the long haul. When they start snarling at me, I go numb And focus on my paycheck, since I know It’s only real life, nothing personal.
Hospital It’s always been there, but it’s grown a lot, Having swallowed up its neighborhood, Some stores and houses and a heat treat shop. Its owners have put in new capital, The cancer unit and the MRI, And transport people in from miles around To keep their assets fully utilized. People used to travel here to work In one or another factory, But that need for labor has dried up. Now people are the raw material And processed product of an industry, Strapped on carts and moving down the line, All stacked up between the big machines. It is the great circle of business life, One thing after another, logging, furs, Farming, manufacturing, now this, And maybe something else in twenty years. The world spins and the pieces shift around As in an overgrown kaleidoscope. It’s thrilling if you don’t need steady work. At least this time around the cause is good, Since at a working level the whole point Is to care for others. And because Their most advanced machines require a pool Of population to draw patients from, They put them in big cities, even those Where everybody else is moving out. And so the ailing city has become A magnet for the sick, who funnel in From far beyond its ramshackle expanse, Seeking treatment for an endless stream Of ailments, illnesses, and injuries, Coming here, of all places on Earth, As if to someplace holy to be healed.
Welder I planned to buy a used one to set up In my garage, to teach myself to weld, Converting the area into a workshop, Though it’s already slightly overfilled. My father was a welder way back when. He had a helmet and a toolbox full Of welding stuff with burn marks on one end, So I assumed I could skip welding school. I brought it up, and was abruptly quizzed On what it cost and what I need it for, And I lost focus and became confused, And my welding dream was shown the door For now, since funding for the deal fell through. My new plan is to trade something for one To sidestep budgetary re-review. I think that’s what my father would have done.
Flossie My ear tag has a number, but my name Is Flossie. I work at a dairy farm Where every day is pretty much the same: When they turn the lights on in the barn We eat some feed, and then are led outside And down the ramps, where we’re quickly hosed clean, Then to the milking parlor, where we ride The continuous rotary milking machine, Which is our labor, three times every day. And in between we go to the feed lot And eat feed from the trough, and sometimes hay, Which after a good milking hits the spot. The milker spins slowly. You just step on And are all prepped and hooked up in a snap, While right behind, a cow whose round is done Is being uninstalled to make a gap For the next cow, one cow off, one on, And ninety in between them riding steel In a radially symmetric formation Like flower petals or spokes on a wheel, Staring at the hub of the machine, Where their ninety milk hoses combine Into an unbroken high-volume stream Filling trucks and tank cars down the line. We often talk about our calves, who were Removed from us a few days after birth To be prepared, as we once were, to serve Their fated bovine purpose on this earth. We send a sea of milk out every day, A full quota from every mother cow, And hope a little of it flows their way. They all must be getting so big by now.
Acknowledgements: Blue Unicorn (“Salesman”), Slant (“Hospital,””Flossie”), The Lyric (“Welder”)
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal 