Posted in Unexpected

Consistency

Vacation work
swift currents
manual, masculine, mercenary : “ ya not at university now.”
The career place is a surprise.
Leisurely
time always for a second coffee.

Young and new
self-preservation raises a finger to lips
management approves.

Time elapses to confidence re confidential
I question a colleague about absent urgency.
He finds the English Language guilty
too sloppy
too imprecise
too ambiguous.
A catwalk is not a structure for felines
working day does quantify work
both are descriptors
neither is literal.

Most of the staff here in his opinion
were like a car never extended
the prevailing atrophy typified by Lester
still very young but
after almost a decade at such slow speed
at such low revolutions
engine capacity was lost. Forever.

26 years later
quarter of a century since we were colleagues
the former confidant and I talk.
He is still in the same workplace
as is the example used.
For Lester it is the only job he has known
the one he came to from high school
I contrast extinct stability with modern career migration.

The reply is snapped.
A good employee.
Dedicated.
Hard-working.
He always was.

Posted in Unexpected

Presumptuous

At work we have a tea lady
an old-fashioned term
quaint
antiquated
it is what she calls herself.

Friendly
bosomy
motherly
she looks exactly what she is
a grandmother and tea lady.

Four hours per day
9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
it splits her day into
two diminished halves
an all-day commitment
for half’s pay.

She has a friend
they will job share
two weeks on
two weeks off.

A good deal
it will work for both parties
effective immediately.

They tell the director
he is incensed
“I appoint the staff around here
not the bloody tea lady.”

Posted in Unexpected

Vintage

I heard it first
the sound of a not young
not well car
rust acned
not sufficiently distinguished for restoration
too dilapidated for eBay.

It was the fisherman’s route
the old quarry road
below the cliff’s
a secret known to locals
deceptive
rutted and vegetated
but good bones – a spine of granite
built for trucks half of a century before
hauling limestone from pockmarked slopes.
History now.

The motel owner told us about it
a couple of years before
after a few of coming each year
said we could get all the way round to the next bay
six hours return by foot.

Ocean + sky + cliffs + Islands
sun steepled
surf arched
cathedral wilderness.
Landscape as God intended.

Pencil thin
scruffy faced
baseball cap backwards
tattooed neck
young
male
leans out non pausing window
words travel on a ribbon of smoke
“best view in the world.”