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(My apologies for the way DU formatting killed the structure of this poem here; I can't figure out how to fix that problem yet)
"Work"
1.
They say, What would you like to do or where would you like to work they chop my solid twenty-four into segments. You geet two hourse for waking, showering, eating. One to two traveling then at least eight there. One to two more traveling home supper a quick fuck or three beers then sleep eight and wake up again to shower, eat, travel, work, travel, quick fuck, sleep, wake, shower until they merge and flow like molten lava and I say, Yes, but I get two weeks vacation per year, ten holidays, twelve sick days and one floating personal day to live and I feel like the negative space between the bars of a jail cell that farts freedom in your face. These men, shelling out salaries of death sandwiches for my half hour lunch break
2.
They say, What would you like to do or where would you like to work. I think, Earth. I'd like to work on Earth, third in from the sun. Does the bear say, I work in this section of the forest. Does the eagle say, I work in this part of space. Does the Shark say, I swim only here. Does the air work or the wind. And what kind of work do I want to do? I say, I want to eat and sleep and explore like the bear and the eagle and the shark. I want to speak like the wind and breathe air period. I want to hang a sign on my door: Do not disturb while I'm at work dreaming. They say, this is lazy. They say, you are worthless. They say, you have no ambition. And I tell them, I am an unambitious worthless problem like the air and the wind. I will sleep and dream like the air and move in passion like the wind when it pleases me and for no one.
3.
They say, What would you like to do or where would you like to work. They tell me, Do something you like to do, life is wonderful when you like your job. I tell them, It is an oxymoron to like your job as if a convict ever loves his cell. They say, Learn to drive a tractor trailer or fix automobile transmissions or learn to weld or fix toilets or serve drinks with paper umbrellas to people under the shade and I think, No one likes to work the name itself implies contempt, a comfortable contempt like the old convict who after years accepts his cell as home. Some people like their jobs, they say and I think, Who? Who likes their job? Does the garbageman really like picking up shit all day? Do tellers like to sit all day behind a bullet proof glass wall? Even poets don't really like to teach workshops. (I have heard them say this.) Fill ketchup bottles, stuff sausages, clean pots or sell hot dogs and cigarettes. And if you say, Doctors love their work or dentists love their work or lawyers or engineers or stock brokers then why, why do they value their vacations as much as the garbageman and the teller and the sausage stuffer and the pot cleaner? Baseball players like their work some actors and poets and all sleepers who dream.
4.
What kind of things perpetuate work? Cancer, yes cancer makes work. It makes work for surgeons and people who run self-examination breast programs. It makes work for social workers and therapists and nurses and chemical manufacturers and the people who clean the floors in hospitals and those who make the paper cups in hospital bathrooms and makers of high fiber cereals and morticians and casket makers and people who supply the metal for ash carrying urns and for the miners or iron ore used for metal ash carrying urns and for florists and greeting card companies. It makes work for wig makers and sellers of wigs and for plastic tube makers and journalists and typesetters and single parent rap group organizers and ecologists and environmentalists and lab technicians and surgeons and people who run self-examination breast programs. Oh, I've said that already.
5.
Factories would close without workers but plants would still grow wind would still blow mountains would still fold. Wiithout prison guards there would be no prisons. And doctors could not work without orderlies and secretaries the dry cleaners the house cleaners the supermarket stock boys the tellers the mechanics and the fixers of automobile transmissions and toilets
Armies could not function without foot sodiers. We have set this naightmare into motion and we can stopit. Quit! Fighting for full employment is not the answer Fight for full unemployment.
Everybody, set your alarm for noon or turn it off and sleep until you want to get up. Bears do this, cats do this, birds do this so why should we be any different inhabitants on this third planet in from the sun somewhere spinning and revolving in the universe yes, the universe is not up there it's here and we are in it. Quit and sleep. Sleep and dream. Stop it stop it you're killing me.
—Peter Spiro
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