Nothing to write about: <\/p>\n Guy walks into a bar, sits, turns to his friend. Boss having memorized the HR handbook sent the email to remind and reprimand the staff. or worse, had turned that sort of corner where Another day, another bar, another schlepper, This is no joke unless the joke is on us whatever style it takes to fuss and dissemble. There will be a third one, still no joke\u2014 the new Middle Ages too with fealties to lords private elevators, golden parachutes, to guide him to some booth in some craft beer, where the principals do nothing, know nothing. a tesserae of Post Its with \u201cremember,\u201d \u201cto do,\u201d spread-so-thin version of the man in digital its classical proportion, its three-part structure boss is waiting for our guy in gastro pub was very difficult to write. Yeah, run of the mill while our guy peruses the seared and poached, then down-shift to explain why promotion didn\u2019t take. inside his iron cage, a \u201cnullity,\u201d says Weber. noise showing where wind blows, new Middle Ages, <\/p>\n \u201cQuanti si tegnon or l\u00e0 s\u00f9 gran regi \u201cFifteen years, it\u2019s been fifteen years and…\u201d the Ernie-looking fellow in the elevator going on his own as if to keep himself from \u201cI\u2019m fifty, you know?\u201d Short on ammo, long on scruples\u2014 and sort the how and why he\u2019s here How many puff their way to the top she ends up with the likes of her her doings here unspeakable, disparaged. \u201cFrom where I stand these fucks are here I\u2019ve been here fifteen years.\u201d to institutional wreck or national memory too sub sigillo<\/em> workings of perfidy these days. and word on the street is all we have to go on. overtimes and clean-ups and good ideas. airbrush key codes and passwords, every time she talks about how things Why turn to crestfallen Ernie through the same ringer I went through?\u201d \u201cTwo years here and what has she done, eh? as to her MO and what\u2019s with all this \u2018envision\u2019 with little else for consolation, pinioned at the lobby \u201cThey\u2019re \u2018rebranding\u201d she said, and I came back We know how Rome was built. however many villages you scorch. then fire your shot, call it a triumph, however off-target. spear carried with a psychic income it\u2019s not even a wannabee Rome with rotunda \u201cEgalitarian, not equitable.\u201d Ernie corrects The Philadelphia Sound Nothing to write about: Man and \u201cLyrical God,\u201d how he christened the contrivance clobbered to mimic the school desk where he learned. He sets it up by the exit, makes the black acrylic sheets rattle, babble, reverb with his forearm, a pen, spoons. A bunch of wannabes gang around turfing a bit, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[346,349],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nMan and \u201cLyrical God,\u201d
\nhow he christened the contrivance
\nclobbered to mimic the school desk
\nwhere he learned.
\nHe sets it up by the exit,
\nmakes the black acrylic sheets
\nrattle, babble, reverb
\nwith his forearm, a pen, spoons.
\nA bunch of wannabes gang around
\nturfing a bit, mouthing the chorus.
\nThe drill team in the median
\ncould for auxetic purposes
\nbring it on, have a showdown,
\nupgrade the sort of off-kilter
\nstichomythia of tunes
\nIves stitched together
\nfrom corners to score
\nwho we were, reconcile
\nshark, braggart, brawler,
\nthe pious, the patriotic,
\nthe slatterns and the boss.
\nThey trail off though, no team
\nper se<\/em>, a quad, two quints, bass
\nwith plastic collection jars
\ntaped to each drum.
\nBorn of necessity or budget cuts,
\nthe kids with feathers on their hats,
\nduct-taped drumheads;
\nsome music of necessity also:
\nsea shanty, waulking song, lullaby,
\nlike a live cinder smuggled
\nfrom the gods to make it through.
\nAnd it galled the heart inside him
\nwhen he saw the far seen glory of fire
\namong mortal people.<\/em>
\nPay them no mind. However hard,
\nthe powers that be will be.
\nCheck the guy who claims
\nhe\u2019s \u201cLittle Sonny\u201d
\nof The Intruders<\/em> fame,
\nGamble & Huff\u2019s first moneymakers,
\nand forefather to The Stylistics,
\nHarold Melvin and the Blue Notes.<\/em>
\nNo him, no Love Train<\/em>,
\nMe and Mrs. Jones, Back Stabbers.<\/em>
\nDaily, he backs his mobility scooter
\nagainst the corner of the bank,
\nunstraps his prosthetic \u2013
\npart of his set up\u2014
\nthe leg he props a Solo cup on,
\nthe Roland street amp, the guitar.
\nGrating, what he does to repertoire.
\nAin\u2019t No Stopping Us Now,
\nOnly the Strong Survive,<\/em>
\nmasterpieces some.
\nWhat Gamble wrought:
\nthe Philadelphia sound,
\nthe man on the scooter,
\nthe payola scandal,
\n15 gold singles, 22 gold albums,
\nhim addressing the Republican convention
\nin a dark suit and topi,
\nfourteen million dollars worth of hits,
\ncounting every penny.
\nAs I said, not much to write about,
\nthough the amputee is lying,
\n\u201cLittle Sonny\u201d jumped off a bridge in \u201995.<\/p>\nThe Bosses<\/h4>\n
\nFriend says, \u201cHow\u2019s the new boss?\u201d
\n\u201cA fucking bureaucrat,\u201d leaves it at that.<\/p>\n
\nto the eleventh bullet point of a subheading
\nhad just done his cut and paste job, <\/p>\n
\nBut the friend is just nodding, guy shaking his hand
\nas if both where quick-sanded in the dream of reason,<\/p>\n
\nlurk the spooks on the prowl for poor schmos
\nin Kafka\u2019s world, specters of the system, or the system.<\/p>\n
\nstandard issue rolling laptop briefcase.
\nSame question. \u201cThe boss?\u201d \u201cA fool.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nnine-to-fiving it under archetypes:
\nthe lout, the micromanager, the clown, <\/p>\n
\nAnyway, this guy is here to drink, not scaffold
\na third sucker come to deliver the punch line.<\/p>\n
\nfidgety, fatigued, shirt coming untucked,
\na splice of middle age and come to think of it<\/p>\n
\nin office towers or corporate parks.
\nThe master\u2019s corve\u00e9 everywhere in evidence:<\/p>\n
\nheirs apparent to the new America
\nfor which our fellow here needs only a hostess<\/p>\n
\ntapas, gastro pub. He is running late.
\nNo surprise. His day is at some boondoggle<\/p>\n
\nPeep into the cubicle where he\u2019s vying for promotion,
\npictures of the kids buried so deep in paperwork,<\/p>\n
\nlike an evidence map in a crime too tangled to resolve.
\nAnd that is just analog, with another more frazzled, <\/p>\n
\nif you unlock his phone, check his computer screen.
\nWe\u2019ve lost the symmetry of the joke, <\/p>\n
\nand paperwork is not entirely to blame.
\nIn his tousled pr\u00eat-\u00e0-porterish, post-yoga ease<\/p>\n
\nsipping from his green-chai hibiscus thing,
\nhere to follow up on an email he claims<\/p>\n
\nDear John stuff he follows up with consolation lunch
\nand small talk about the kids, the traffic,<\/p>\n
\norganic, local and other gibberish around a French fry.
\nBoss will have his regular, lobster paella,<\/p>\n
\nDo we need to see the beast, his gaze as from the passing
\nbars, behind the thousand bars no world; the lout<\/p>\n
\nListen to him: \u201ccore competency,\u201d \u201ctension in the system,\u201d
\n\u201cmoving forward,\u201d \u201csea change,\u201d like a rusty weathervane,<\/p>\n
\nits magnificos<\/em> and grandees<\/em> sipping chai, a new America,
\nwith micro-managers and bureaucrats and clowns. No joke. <\/p>\nNo Fucking Rome<\/h4>\n
\nche qui staranno come porci un brago,
\nde s\u00e9 lasciando orribili dispregi!\u201d<\/em>
\n Dante, Inferno, Canto VIII<\/p>\n
\nlike a barfly who drives you to a corner
\nshare in confidence or untangle frame-up,<\/p>\n
\nknows me from Adam but swoops
\non me to mutter what grumble he had<\/p>\n
\ngoing postal, though it lands him back
\nin the dreary of so many \u201cwhat nexts.\u201d <\/p>\n
\nthe difference between him and the \u201choncho bitch\u201d
\nthat handed him pink slip\u2014he\u2019s left to chunter<\/p>\n
\nthough he can\u2019t get past
\nthe years of service, \u201cfifteen years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\npretenders come believe they\u2019re sovereign for real?
\nBoss certainly does. In some idea of justice, <\/p>\n
\nto wallow for eternity in filth,
\nche qui staranno come porci un brago,<\/em><\/p>\n
\nShe\u2019s what head-hunter winnowed to come
\nstraighten up the place, make it run.<\/p>\n
\nto dismantle the joint, sell it for parts.
\nShe walked me through the handbook<\/p>\n
\nI have nothing to say. They browbeat their plans
\ninto our day, call it legacy what barnacles<\/p>\n
\nif corpus juris and corps diplomatique<\/em>
\nenter the record to be filed with all the other<\/p>\n
\nPerfidy is right, a bit Miltonic but right.
\nWord on the street, Ernie is the fifth casualty, <\/p>\n
\n\u201cI was the one who actually…\u201d
\nReader, you can fill in the blanks for him:<\/p>\n
\nHR still wants Ernie to turn in his ID.
\nThey\u2019ll purge him from the system,<\/p>\n
\nsomething drastic enough, final enough,
\nupstairs, there is a lineup of loyalists nodding<\/p>\n
\nwere done in the place she worked before
\nas if that were a sort of insight. <\/p>\n
\nwho doesn\u2019t get it, is rueful, shell-shocked?
\n\u201cI don\u2019t see why the other guy wasn\u2019t put <\/p>\n
\nHe\u2019s talking about criteria and double standards
\nabout whether they deserve to keep their jobs:<\/p>\n
\nShe wants \u2018transparency\u2019 she goes around
\n\u2018transparency\u2019 she says but never lets on<\/p>\n
\nshit and that I\u2019m not in the \u2018bandwidth.\u2019\u201d
\n\u201cThey love clich\u00e9s and platitudes\u201d I shrug<\/p>\n
\nlike an innocent bystander to gather what\u2019s
\nsalvageable from wreck, hand it back to victim.<\/p>\n
\nat her, you know what she said, she said
\nRome wasn\u2019t built in a day. Seriously?\u201d<\/p>\n
\nWrite an epic or have one written for you,
\nabide by its holy missions, its prophecies,<\/p>\n
\nWhen in doubt, flip through it eyes closed
\nyour sortes Virgilianae<\/em> thing, point a random passage<\/p>\n
\nBecause they go nowhere but up, theirs is perpetual
\ninterregnum, you are always interim, <\/p>\n
\nfactored somewhere in their gambles.
\n\u201cThis is no fucking Rome, just look around,<\/p>\n
\nand bust of the bully who endowed the place.\u201d
\n\u201cThey\u2019re more egalitarian around here,\u201d my joke.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cand you know what else, ah, forget about it,\u201d
\nwaves me off, out the building, exits a final time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"