I hesitate before publishing stuff like this – it looks like I’m whining for sympathy – I am not; but if writing cannot be candid – warts and all – it is already damned, so I will publish AND be damned
my lives
of others
how long has this been going on
how long this has been going on
demands in their eyes pulling me to them like a planet
pulling on me to contain them
pulling deep in me through the latest orbit
I give because I can
learnt silently in the decades
I have lived to allow
yet ever wider in order to include
to neutralise my gravity in order to listen
and let them breathe enough
to find their own solution
decades of leaning a hundred ways
to be with others
decades of privately finding ways
to rebuild my own gravity
shiny marbles with petrified ink
then having to let them go
tearfully each time
eventually
all under the great broad horizon
lost before the hills on the great broad horizon
the beautiful twilight-mauve desert
and the radiation presence of the close planet
they cannot do the same for me
they will not do the same for me:
the stalls and foreclosures are my own making
my audience extends only as far to conclude
that it is all about my awkwardness
all I have to do is fit in
before I have even finished explaining
usually I don’t bother to finish
or even start
the solution is ready-made
with a few ‘hmm’s to make it look kindly
or it is kept to themself
echoing loudly in their brains through their eyes
like sharing secrets with the fog
I find myself alone
each of them was the last person I could turn to in the world
but they all agree with each other
they are the Company Man
I have done my bit for the family
I have done my bit for the team
I have done my bit for the community
all by not being there
all by not getting in the way
I cried when I was acknowledged once
it never happened again
it’s just
they need to keep from shattering in a thousand pieces
they need to hold the whole damn thing together
so I give because I can
because it is right
but I cannot expect the return
they cannot give
what they expect in return
for sure things are done
things may be organised
sometimes even when I want them
but they are done for some greater good
for the greater good of a career
for the greater good of legacy
not mine
certainly not mine
(‘America I have given you all
and now I am nothing’)
when I work it is all about them
when I stop it is all about how they performed
all that I do and don’t do
is how it sits as support or burden
to them
conclusion: it is only them who do the work
the thinking the organising
I seem to do nothing really
and do it annoyingly and awkwardly and thinkingly – roll eyes exasperation
I have to be managed to be of any competence
that’s meant affectionately
I am just the recipient of their good work
what do they call them these days – ‘clients’
my value my contribution what I am
are the price I pay to receive
so I don’t say anything – what’s the point?
I’ll put a few things out
tentatively
but I would be patronised at best if I’m lucky
if the planets are lined up right
told it’s cute
or individual
or much too clever to understand
or it’s not what was needed
or sorry, Mark, did you say something
and the audience will move swiftly on
to what it wanted to talk about anyway
or what it wanted to be doing all along
I mostly keep it to myself
here
in the place I claim each day
time to myself bittersweet
at siege from service and compliance
to ‘indulge’ myself ‘stay up too late’ ‘contemplate my navel’
otherwise I get ‘grumpy’
I talk to myself
I am not the Company Man
no one
to share
me with
no one interested beyond the managed
obliged
corporate return
oh yes I return to myself
find my own meaning purpose audience love
safe in the fifty year relationship
which is good for only one
the weekends holidays and days off get whittled away
here and there
chips and shavings on the floor
leaving a petrified face
eyes wide mouth open
a bas-relief out from being
breathing wormhole: honest
career wormhole: sit. / In. / g …
horizon wormhole: poessay IV
society wormhole: 20th century
