Bradley Mason Hamlin on the Other Side of the
Matchstick of the Damned
Never
could understand
or relate to
these mainstream men
and women
running businesses
big, small, or medium
mostly white
but doesn't matter
all managers
(that don't think outside the square)
are trained for alien asshole
invasion
abusive to employees
just
for
the
hell of it
good old and new corporate America
television
radio
theater
all casualties
of the new slavery
Never could
relate
to the way
society
is set up
that ambiguous concept
forcing us along,
the way we have to work
the jobs we hate
for an unlivable wage or
more money
for more abuse and training
to become abusive yourself
as you morph into them
but look
at the way the blank faces
hate you
if you don't
squeeze the intelligence
outside your brain
you've got to be a soldier
dumb for the bullet
to survive in the cubicle
talk their talk or
join their
thin line of linear thinking
football gambling pools
and Tupperware parties
death-walking
smiling stoned-brained always …
At the job
it's always some black guy or girl
I end up befriending
if I make a friend at all
not purposefully
but the displaced Africans
understand this is not their land
anymore than it is mine
even if they've never seen
a rhino in the wild
an office ain't Africa
nor is a salesman, by any color,
an artist
But we sell, babies, don't we?
sure, some sell creatively
and not all dark-skinned relatives
of the old land
want to identify with the jungle
but we're all in it anyways
the cement forest of concrete faces
Working
and selling
working
and selling nothing worth buying
screaming without spears
cringing without shields …
where
is my lion roaring on the veldt?
where
is my sacred wooden art?
where
is my time undone watching the Watusi?
who will lead me
to the elephant graveyard when I die
of boredom?
I steal
time from the controllers
whenever I can
typing things
I am not supposed to
this
document
is
illegal
contraband in a foreign world
sneaking hot shots of whiskey
from flask
listening to Tony Bennett sing
"Stranger In Paradise"
during lunch break
and drinking pots of coffee
to
stay awake on alien planet
drinking bottles of booze before bed
to
knock myself out
shoot, baby,
it ain't so bad
even if I am
just a matchstick of the damned
I am still alive,
a block of wood for the furnace …
firewood for Hell, ha!
sing you sinners …
There is no
time
to
be who you are
if you work for the wrong man,
woman, or monster
there is no time
to
return the product
and start over
if the brainwashing becomes complete
all sales are final.
© Copyright Bradley Mason Hamlin 2003