Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Brandy


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:

Rachel said...

Evocative. I can pictures you in the car - this evokes a convertible - driving along to a job - and understanding your luck despite your boss.

B. Glen Rotchin said...

This one certainly describes more than one day in my life. Minus the convertible. LOL

Ken Stollon said...

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.

B. Glen Rotchin said...

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?