Working

Sammi’s Weekender #225 (newspaper)

Click for Sammi’s Blog

Delivery Pros

Times Leader trucks stopped
at Butler and Main
around four each day,
any season, any weather.

We carried bundles,
cut binding wires,
counted papers,
rolled them and stuffed full
our heavy canvas bags as only
experienced newspaper boys can,
for precise throwing
onto porches passed
on our route.

We knew customer’s names,
addresses, dogs, gates, and fences.
We collected cash, paid the Times.
Made profits. Businessmen at twelve.

Look both ways and remember the days when print was king.
Mind the gaps, bumps, hard work, and headline news.
Collect politely to keep customers.

 

 

NaPoWriMo: 30 poems in 30 days (day 27)

Day 27 prompt: write a poem in the form of a review of something that isn’t normally reviewed. I reviewed my creativity muse.

The Myth of the Muse

Ideas come.
Mousa, child of Zeus,
sky fairy serving maybes
on Ouija boards of art.

Writing, creative inspiration,
poetry. It’s all work.
“Shoveling shit from
a sitting (or standing) position.”

My muse is not out there,
she’s in here (head, heart, soul,
big toe). This is not
Big Magic. It’s work. A job.

Try. Fail. Repeat. Erasing
is creative writing, drawing,
or painting (crafting). We’re all phonies,
and none of us are. Fear makes waits.

New ideas are borrowed reality.
Read, think, write, and a magic muse
will find life. Punch production clocks,
then make words, pictures, pieces.

I must self-muse: love it or leave it.
Buy the damn lottery ticket.
Go for the interview. Sign up.
“God helps those….” Who makes them?

Look both ways for inspiration
but look within for courage to work.
Mind the gaps for your impostor’s syndrome.

***

Note: quotes are Stephen King (shoveling…), and Dad (God helps…).
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Big Magic.

Poetry — NaPoWriMo: NoMo’ Workshuns Retiremeizations

The third day prompt of the 2018 National Poetry Writing Month: Write a list poem in which all the items are made-up names. This poem is based on a tongue-in-cheek look back at working from the perspective of retirement.

NoMo’ WorkShuns of Retiremeizations

No mo’ traffic commushuns
No mo’ Monday bluesifications
No mo’ burnt coffee offeringtoshuns
No mo’ why I’m late excuzations
No mo’ performance evauliebations
No mo’ worrying about promousayshuns
No mo’ office gossip whosaytions
No mo’ workmate envy whodaypaytions
No mo’ idiot bossbigheadiztions
No mo’ recovery vacatoshortations
No mo’ meeting bordeathpations
No mo’ engineering gobbledygookovations
No mo’ organized rejobmobettatryzations
No mo’ more with lesspraystaions
No mo’ work aggravation peepsalazations
No mo’ monthly disgruntiliations
No mo’ hallucinational goalaberations
No mo’ feckup fairy malfunctioniztions
No mo’ maybenots of probationosensations

(Bill Reynolds 4/3/2018)

Working or retired, look both ways.
Mind those workday gaps.

Click link to National Poetry Writing Month