Work Poems 3 January 2012

1. FIRST THOUGHTS

First morning back, holiday eyes strain through multifocals
which will not focus on a widescreen, work email won’t open,
password can’t be changed, no access to G-drive documents,
clearly some ‘me’-time here

Time to reorganise papers and drawers, fill in 2012 diary,
get ready for the Maya’s predicted end, should their
calendar be right – I sincerely doubt this as doomsday
prophecies have horrible tendencies to be wrong

Hunger pangs remind me I am far from my kitchen,
cannot make pancakes with cinnamon, sugar and lemon,
sudden cold shock realising I am once again at the
mercy of fast-food restaurants –

Oh woe is me, the only joy in life left the elderly, eating,
becomes a fight for survival whereas at home it is a
24 hour delightful pastime!


2. GODS FAVOURED ME

Heat – no air-con today – realising France’s dream of
saving their coastline due to the Greenhouse effect,
went for a lunch-break stroll singing all the way,
refusing to contemplate office problems

The gods favoured me on my first day, email connection
restored, now I am so privileged to read criticism of the
work I did before leaving on holiday, I am still girdling
my loins with positive thoughts

Before tackling heartbreaking rejection of words I wrote,
New Year’s Resolution: never face today what can be
deferred to tomorrow, stop and smell the roses, I can
read nasty remarks any time

The mere fact of having an office in which to be miserable
is such a source of joy and delight, not to be spoilt with
feelings of inadequacy; why cry about the humours of
those in charge trying to convince me I am

A disaster because I cannot write the words they dictate,
cannot march to the tune they prescribe, kept in my place
by them changing their translation rules every day - I am
thankful that I can still think and feel after years

As a civil servant, I should have turned into a cyborg ages
ago, yet the incessant stream of criticism proves I am still
the same human I was at the beginning – people like me
cannot be changed into robots

No matter how much criticism is directed our way, olé!


3. CYBORG-ROBOTIC MODE

Checking the work I did in cyborg-robotic mode, though I
resemble Marvin the Paranoid Android more than Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s character in Terminator, pleased with
the lack of mistakes, the cold work of a true civil servant,
sans mind, sans reason, sans feelings

This brilliant document a testament to a human being’s
ability to exist like a vegetable, joyfully restricted to its
own phenomenology as preached by Zen Buddhists -
not asking for meaning, no existential question, a way
of being totally happy advocated by those

Seeking such blissful existence; though it is peaceful, it
is also absolutely boring, my unwilling submission to this
system only proves we are destined for a passionately
emotional universe, we serve in penitence for survival
to eat, drink, dress and sleep - but in non-physical

Where consciousness continues unabated, we shall be
free to experience feeling intense - as physical reality
will no longer dicate every mental step we take
along the way…