[lit-ideas] Re: SECOND FRIDAY POEM
- From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 16:52:34 -0400
PS: I just hope you appreciate the trouble I'm going through!
Apocalypse at Work
You wake up late or linger over an extra banana.
The shower feels good or the music hasn't ended
or you can't release the bed-warm embrace or the
telephone distracts you. The train or the bus or
the car or your walk is impeded by lightning or rain
or snow or a hurried driver's distant misfortune.
The elevator's broken, a bomb scare believed,
or a rush meeting called to discuss the executive's
toe surgery. You read too many E-mails or memos or
a co-worker has pictures of her Nashville trip that
you simply must see. From this sequence, a few minutes
drop from your morning, minutes to respond to the
urgent issue, the pressing deadline, the final due date,
the task at hand. You fail to request interns. You are
late for tasks and too late to be proactive, responsive,
compliant, prepared, closed. The opportunity is lost
and the contract is voided and an option is forfeited:
the glaring red button that flickers warnings is now
flickering a warning, letting everyone know that a
vital process was undermined, an enterprise dashed,
and safeguards will expire. You watch safeguards expire.
So the project is in meltdown as the failure cascades,
and the emergency gates close, the merciless steel gates
close and lock, as the alarm falls silent and the power
is shut off and the terminal disconnects and the lights
wink off in solemn tandem as everyone exits promptly and
you are through, they are through, the whole mechanism
has imploded, and the hated, yearned-for void of extended
free time opens like the lips of an all-consuming giant,
opens about you to spit you out into the world, breech shot
and dripping amniotic misery, and you are alone with only
imagination for routine, you cry and breathe hard and still
you cry and you wake up late or linger over an extra banana.
Eric Yost
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
