Grace @ Everyday Amazing
Toronto City
the irony
of having a job in the big city
is that you are always thinking of escape-
beyond the shiny walls of mailboxes & files,
above the clutter of cubicles, chairs & black wires-
to rise like soapy bubbles from
rinsing dirty cups and teaspoons in the kitchen sink-
to drift like maple leaves, brown & careless
in the wind, as you drive along the busy freeway-
people peer at windows, hungry for the open sky
they talk about beginnings - vacations in sunny
shores & retiring in the cottage, by the blue lake -
eagerly counting the day they fly away from this
everyday grind of bread & debts - a pipe-dream
as we cleave to our desks, like grateful worker bees,
meekly eating the piece of the lemon pie,
swallowing down fears that at anytime, one of us
can be crumpled away, like a grease-balled
sandwich wrapper-
Posted for: D'verse Poets Pub
being crumpled away, like a grease-balled sandwich wrapper- oh heck...love the images...and it def. can feel like that on some days..ugh..
ReplyDeleteThank you Claudia ~
DeleteGrace, your details took me back a few years and it wasn't to one of my more favorite jobs. If you're the one cleaning the break room, I'd have to guess you're the manager. Been there, done that. Very nicely crafted.
ReplyDeleteThanks Victoria ~
Deleteoy...throw away people trapped to the desk to make the money so they can do something the week they get free and really feel alive...been there....i rather like the city, as long as i am not going to work...smiles.
ReplyDeleteMe too Brian ~ Thanks for the visit ~
Deletenice... contentment a hard thing... young mom's want their baby to get out of diapers and grow up, then they have teens and wish they were babies again...
ReplyDeletemm...I think you were reading a different poem, thanks for the visit anyway ~
DeleteI work in the city but I don't live there. Gives me a unique perspective and helps me appreciate it more :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Keith ~
DeleteYou know, some of those people who are desperate to get out find themselves with nothing to do once they do escape.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is perceptive of you Tony ~ Having been caged so long, they really don't know what to do with all that time and energy ~ Thank you ~
DeleteIs hard work in the city, I made it many times, many years, until the twins arrived so my life change, I dont know Grace sometimes I would like work out again but sometimes I appreciate work at home, maybe is the life!
ReplyDeleteanyway you always make me think!xo
Working at home would be ideal Gloria ~ Thanks ~
DeleteJust great. Perfect irony. Once there you just want to escape----
ReplyDeleteSome people thrive in the city, but most prefer a change of scenery ~ Thanks for the visit ~
DeleteOh, man! I don't like the way that ended! But so true. We are so very dispensable.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it the truth ~ Thanks Charles ~
DeleteVivid wishes, vivid drive and windows--all so dependent on the income of the job and the steadiness of the grind. Indeed, t is a double irony: fear of disposal and never getting where the dreams are (plans on paper only and thus more easily crumpled). A far deadlier poem than it seems on the surface.
ReplyDeleteThat is another way of looking at the crumpled paper ~
DeleteThank you for the lovely comments Susan ~
Never thought of getting thrown away like a sandwich wrapper, but true enough and yeah all want to get out, but few ever do.
ReplyDeleteSo very true Pat ~
DeleteLoved this poem...great imagery of the wage slave. How many women I wonder like their jobs. I hated mine. I still have that sinking feeling on Sunday night even though I have been self employed for years. It's ironical that so many women have been told that having a job out there in the interesting world is the ultimate..not in my experience...I like being my own boss in the comfortable environment of my own home.
ReplyDeleteBeing my own boss in the home environment would be a dream come true ~ Thanks for the visit ~
DeleteIt is odd isn't it? But then when I was stuck in bed after my surgery I couldn't wait to go back - until I did and I wanted to go back home lol. We humans are not easily contented
ReplyDeleteI know Gretchen ~ Thanks for the visit ~
DeleteOw! So true.
ReplyDeleteThanks Susan ~
DeleteYes so very true!!!
ReplyDeleteThe grind of the wage slave has purpose when we dream it's all just a means of reaching better days in better places! But then, wrappers have a habit of being unwrapped! Dynamic poem!
ReplyDeleteI felt this way when I was working. The work stifled my freedom. Sometimes, I feel this way about being a stay-at-hoe mother (except that I can't be tossed like a grease-balled sandwich paper). Odd, isn't it? :-)
ReplyDeleteFantastic phrasing to capture a dark, cynical view -- so appropriately.
ReplyDeleteYet I also know rural folks (here in the USA and many countries) who crave the city. They look out their windows at the same flat fields or the same monotonous mountains and crave the flashy busy city with lots of restaurants, entertainment and people of greater variety.
Idealized rural, Idealized city -- the grass is always greener, the concrete is always cooler -- on the other side.
Thanx for getting me to think with your wonderful metre and phrasing.
The grass is always greener on the other side ~ I appreciate your thoughts Sabio, thanks ~
DeleteMy pleasure. Thanks for encouraging thoughtfulness of all flavors
DeleteIt's not a place I would want to be anymore; although the breaks outside on sunny days were great times to walk and get fresh air....at least there are windows to daydream out of ;)
ReplyDeleteThis is the planned result of the planned crash of the economy. Make what workers that are still left so afraid for their jobs that those once attainable goals became pipe dreams. which if you indulge in at home you'll be fired for after your next drug test.
ReplyDeleteTrue words every one, so fearful none ever get out.
ReplyDeleteYou have expressed this really well, Grace. We do always yearn for 'escape' to somewhere, I think....and so often we do not recognize the possibility that life as we know it could change in a moment, 'crumpled away like a grease-balled sandwich wrapper.'
ReplyDeleteI love the vivid imagery and the last line especially. Humans just never seem to find a good healthy balance, seems like I am always between extremes anyways. I love being near nature but having Epilepsy keeps me tied to the city because I can't drive so if I did live in the country I know I'd just feel isolated/more dependent but the city really doesn't help my stress as I am so slow paced.
ReplyDeleteThere's truth in that contradiction -- wanting to escape from the daily grind, desiring that ideal life yet going on, and deep down, afraid of losing one's sense of self and substance in or through one's job.
ReplyDelete(There's a few a dimensions as I read this a few times. I thought at first it was the fear losing a job. And I read again, and it's not exactly that. It's wanting for something other that this daily grind, out of the routine sameness, yet realizing it's a pipe dream, and so it wakes one to reality of a seemingly miserable picture of drones all doing the same thing. I finally came to what I wrote above.)
Enjoyed reading this poem. Very interesting piece. :)
Loved the vivid descriptions in this piece ... well written !!!
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I love the similes in the second stanza.
ReplyDeleteI remember a couple who moved from the 'noisy' city to the 'quiet' country, but fell out with the locals for they kept complaining about cocks crowing in the morning, as if the country should just be silence! Grass is always greener..
ReplyDeletei like how the worker bees are eating that sour, sour pie, that's work int he city all right
ReplyDeleteFirst Rose
Thinking of escape. Yes, well described. I like your photo, too.
ReplyDelete"to rise like soapy bubbles from
ReplyDeleterinsing dirty cups and teaspoons in the kitchen sink-
to drift like maple leaves, brown & careless
in the wind, as you drive along the busy freeway-"
Vivid imagery--nicely done.