Another Occupation

seemareza prompt August 23, 2018 | 2

I think I’ve finished the manuscript but I haven’t been able to release it yet. Today. Tomorrow.

I often think, when I’m up to my eyeballs in terrible doubt about my poems or my work, that I should learn to do something undeniable and practical instead. Specifically I should learn to build coffins. Everyone needs them, it’s quite clear when you’ve done it wrong, it’s tangible, honest work. Well, done or not, perfect or not, it’s time to let the manuscript go. And simultaneously, whether I’ve told him everything I need to or prepared him fully, it’s time to send my older son go off to college and figure it out (today). I’m re-making peace with the limits of my sphere of influence.

I’d been thinking of Dean Young’s work lately, as I do when I’m editing my friend Ashley gave me The Art of Recklessness many years ago and it was so helpful and necessary. “Let us forgive ourselves for not writing the greatest poem ever written.” I came across this poem which is so conversational and wonderful.

What’s the sort of mundane job you dream of running off to? Write about that? What is it that you think would be great about that? I love how six lines in he admits he has no idea then continues anyway.

Oh! And some upcoming things:

Tomorrow (Friday, August 24th) there’s this great exhibition and reading by Service Members, Eventbrite link for all the details.

Next week (Thursday, August 30) there’s a writing workshop with moi at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, Evenbrite link here. There are six spots left, get one and join us! There will be snacks.

Peach Farm

BY DEAN YOUNG

I’m thinking it’s time to go back

to the peach farm or rather

the peach farm seems to be wanting me back

even though the work of picking, sorting,

the sticky perils and sudden swarms are done.

Okay, full disclosure, I’ve never

been on a peach farm, just glimpsed

from a car squat trees I assumed

were peach and knew a couple in school

who went off one summer, so they said,

to work on a peach farm. She was pregnant,

he didn’t have much intention, canvases

of crushed lightbulbs and screws in paste.

He’d gotten fired from the lunch counter

for putting too much meat

on the sandwiches of his friends

then ended up in Macy’s in New York

selling caviar and she went home

I think to Scranton, two more versions

of never hearing from someone again.

I’d like to say the most important fruits

are within but that’s the very sort of bullshit

one goes to the peach farm to avoid,

not just flight from quadratic equations,

waiting for the plumber,

finding out your insurance won’t pay.

Everyone wants out of the spider’s stomach.

Everyone wants to be part of some harvest

and stop coughing to death and cursing

at nothing and waking up nowhere near

an orchard. Look at these baskets,

bashed about, nearly ruined with good employ.

Often, after you’ve spent a day on a ladder,

you dream of angels, the one with the trumpet

and free subscriptions to the New Yorker

or the archer, the oink angel, angel

of ten dollar bills found in the dryer

or the one who welcomes you in work gloves

and says if you’re caught eating a single peach,

even windfall, you’ll be executed.

Then laughs. It’s okay, kiddo,

long as you’re here, you’re one of us.

Dean Young escape jobs poetry work

2 Responses

Mary Durfee says:

August 23, 2018 at 11:12 am

OK here’s a quick response to the alternative job prompt. It was fun.

The Career Not Taken
By Mary Durfee

The words won’t attach.
Sentences go astray.
Welding would be such a nice alternative.

I like the idea of a torch that cuts and one that
melts substances and then grounds them.
You need flux, but in the end everything is affixed.

Instead of a screen that stares back at me,
I’d pull down the dark visor and stare into the heart of steel.
I’d look for a poor bead of weld and fix it with liquid metals.
I’d build a prototype machine that makes machines and walk away.

I’d still have art.
My gloves and apron and welding tools create the practical
or the decorative.
The weight of writing would not exist.
I could use a crane to move the object of my welding.

On cold days I’d be toasty. No typing with cold fingers.
On hot ones, the sweat would sting my eyes.
I think I’d like those heroic eyes.
Computer eye strain feels so wimpy.

Even after a good day of writing, sleep can be fitful.
I bet I’d collapse into bed at the end of a welder’s day.
Perhaps there would be firework dreams.

Reply
- seemareza says:
  
  August 23, 2018 at 4:12 pm
  
  Thanks Mary!! This is great. “Machine that makes machines.”
  
  Reply

Another Occupation