(thanks, muriel_volestrangler!)
"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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