I broke my promise to write poems only in meter this year for the following cathartic/medicinal, and unfortunately melodramatic entry, partly inspired by the practice (though let’s not compare products!) of Lehman’s Journal in Poetry concept.
Friday, Five Fifteen PM
As the sun sets I say I've worked, and then I look for proof ---easier to do some days than others-- harder, I admit, in this job than in that one which I'd once sworn lifeblood to. Work in the library bindery was done by hand resulting, each day, in a heavy stack (some volumes very slim, some tomes, some simply stitched sections) evidence I'd solved the hours. But that didn't work out, I didn't persist; I moved, I went to school, I fell in love, I vowed to keep it as a hobby. Today at five I made a list of things I'd done at work: I met, I talked, I read, replied, I wrote, I lied. My boss reminded me to check my tasks before I left. It'd grown quite long, this chain of things to do, but not to fault my trying. Instead, I think, it testifies of my value to the firm, the things they need of me today, tomorrow, and beyond. Strange how when I worked with books I passed into the outside world both full and hungry. Nowadays when I walk home inside I'm dense and empty, hard, compressed, yet of such stuff that's light enough to drift away beyond the amber glowing clouds like a pale balloon whose final path will not be seen, whose rubber skin will fall, fit for fish to choke on.
