I was hired
some years ago
(with a little help
from family)
for a job
I never wanted
or imagined.
As it turned out,
I could stomach
the work — despite
the sociopath boss
with a gift
for making money
and hating people.
My co-workers
were usually kind,
we seemed to be
on the same page —
you know,
because
of the sociopath
at the top.
I never got
nauseous
on my morning drive
to work.
Listened to the radio,
and when a song came on
that I liked —
one that brought me back —
like Brandy
"You're a fine girl
what a good wife
you would be..."
I'd sing along
in my car, alone
full-voiced:
"But my life, my love,
and my lady
is the sea..."
and consider
myself
lucky.
4 comments:
Evocative. I can pictures you in the car - this evokes a convertible - driving along to a job - and understanding your luck despite your boss.
This one certainly describes more than one day in my life. Minus the convertible. LOL
I've read and re-read this one several times. If this is indeed biographical, then this is yet another thing we have in common (that we never discussed) ... i.e., the experience of working for a sociopathic boss! Oy, I could tell you stories. But what boggles my mind about the poem is the song -- "Brandy" -- a great song, btw, a fine song -- which, in the poem, becomes kind of unstuck in time (like Billy Pilgrim)! I am not sure, therefore, if the events in the poem are happening in 1972, when Brandy was a hit on the radio, or at some point much later (you have very glibly, very masterfully, kept the timeframe of the poem deliberately vague: "I was hired/ some years ago"), in which case the song is a kind of Proustian trigger, bringing you back to an earlier, less complicated time in your life, when you could enjoy a good song, bask in it's catchy melody and lyrics, without having a sociopathic boss breathing down your neck like a dragon! The song becomes a kind of refuge for you, magically floating in and out time, providing a kind of escape, as art is meant to do.
Seems like having a sociopathic boss is kind of the norm - something bred by capitalism and the hunger for power - and a boss who is kind and nurturing is the exception. Only you could connect my insignificant little ditty with Proust LOL. What would we do without a catchy song to carry us emotionally away with a sense of freedom, like ship on the sea? I love Brandy (more the song than the drink). I always want to play it singalong style with my kids, but astonishingly, they don't like it! How is that even possible?! Everyone I know likes Brandy? I wonder if it's because they are women and find it sexist?
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