“Chicago Winter” by Heidi Malott
backs turned to the wind
skyscrapers huddle for warmth
winter howls off the lake
punch-drunk pedestrians lurch
leaning into their livelihoods
(originally posted December 2013)
Career
All posts tagged Career
“Marooned” by Howard Pyle
the middle of nowhere
prime destination of ill-dreamt
careers and poetry
“Out of the Woods at Walden Pond”
Painting by Rita Brown
From pixels.com
was a time
when I thrived
among men
and machines
of free enterprise
traveling continents
backing development
building new industries
giving to laboring poor
paths to middle class stature
I did my job well
with great pride of success
until time and debility
turned me for home
and the tools of my trade
knack for numbers
a nose for the telltale of risk
became specimens
artifact memories
sconced in museums of mind
now I write in seclusion
removed from the fight
for the wheel and the deal
I create with new tradecraft
arrangements of words
molding metaphors
fabricate stanzas erect
upon pages of commerce
exchanging new coin of this
notional literate realm
“My life has been the poem I would have writ
But I could not both live and utter it”
– Henry David Thoreau
Photo from
dressedlikea.com
I used to carefully tend to the
look of success tailor-made
groomed and stylishly dressed
trompe l’oeil baron of business
urbane with the glib edge and
crease of sophisticate finish
while all the while knowing
my torn tee-shirt scruffy self
someday would step out
to stand in the comfortable
soft wrinkled truth of a
countrified soul far removed
from the trains planes and
boardroom existence that
fooled men and women on
four separate continents
into my custom sewn pockets
“East River Sunrise”
Photo from flickr.com
pushing my bones
through doors of the asylum
executive mornings
sun broaching the East River
too early for ambition
Illustration from “Zero Sum Game Theory”
Article in encyclopedia.com
thirty-five years of
airports and taxies
patched hotel room calls to
part-time paternity
still sag my spirits
with weight of regret
still burn doubts into
my accolades haunting
my sleepless reflections
on zero-sum theory
Photo from blog.photobin.com
if peccadilloes
hamper your choice of career
enter politics
South Street Seaport, Manhattan, NY
Photo from visitingny.com
(The glass tower pictured center above was my one-time office.)
horns blare in dissonant chorus
their dissatisfaction
impatient for progress
curvilinear tempers arise on exhaust fumes
that decompose wall-anchored flags
limestone canyons
draw scrums of impetuous feet
through security doors
daily witnesses having no memory
other than hidden-hand
video cameras
sleek cellular limousines smile
from their tinted glass grilles at the
underground rumblings and screeches
of wheel upon rail hauling
insecure briefcased careers
between depots of commerce
or insincere government service
black coffee
the currency just after sunrise
paints paths on the river
to ferry docks busily bumpered
with truck tires and tranches
of reckless securitized risk
here where stepping stones sink
and glass ladders go soft
where the mighty feel weak and the weak
disappear
I was king for a flash
of an ethical empire
(Reblog of a February piece I wrote here – It was a turning point experience in my life)
It was during the 1960s in New Jersey. I was attending university during the day and had just given up my job as a night shift computer operator. I was also working weekends in a supermarket, and a friend there put me on to a better paying night job, loading tractor trailers at a distribution warehouse for the same supermarket chain.
As a store clerk, I was required to be a member of the Retail Clerks’ Union, a group that was infamously impotent and whose New Jersey local was openly corrupt. I had no use for unions to begin with, but they came with this particular territory, and the dues were only a few dollars a month. However, to become a warehouseman, I would also have to join the Teamsters’ Union. The way it worked back then (I don’t know how it is today) was that once you were…
View original post 730 more words
“Contentment”
Painting by Anthony Noa
At fineartamerica.com
My mother lived to the age of ninety-three. She had siblings who surpassed the century mark. Despite being bedridden by multiple sclerosis for nearly fifty years, my dad made it to eighty-seven. I won’t even come close.
My life has exasperated legions of physicians. From an emotionally stressed youth, in which I developed teenaged bleeding ulcers, I moved through a hypertense career path, forty years long, that left me with a pharmacopeia of prescriptions at retirement. That was ten years ago, and my meds have only increased since then.
Through the decades of constant tension, interspersed with episodes of depression and anxiety, I carried too much weight, ate unwisely and smoked fiendishly. My only real exercise consisted of frequent dashes through airports. Those conditions, minus the business travel and stress, persist to this day. I’ve had open heart surgery twice. Due to a nasty post-op infection that destroyed my sternum, a perfect storm of ensuing maladies has disabled me.
Having said all that, my purpose here is to make clear that my life is a fortunate one. I thank God every day for the gifts I’ve received. My family is large, loving, and sustains me in every sense of that word. My career, stress notwithstanding, allowed me to achieve gratifying levels of personal fulfillment. My conscience is only lightly soiled, mostly by sins of pride, and my regrets are negligible. I’ve acclimated to sedentary pursuits that give me joy, writing this new poetry blog chief among them.
Photo at theflowersavenue.com
Contentment is a powerful and often misunderstood concept. A man of estimable insight and intellect, the moral philosopher Bernard Williams once wrote, “We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.” I have learned to stop passing and looking. I have found my violets and contentment, and I cherish them.
Whatever my future holds, for however long it holds, I intend to enjoy it.
