Let them say I was a simple, stubborn person,
hypersensative or insensative, a dispenser of partial justice,
a person of particular patience,
may those who encountered me in moments of bliss or blight,
in instances of charity, charisma or condemnation speak of me ruefully & beautifully,
some will surely say that I was apolitical, asexual, atypical,
an atheist an animist, a racist or an altruist, a want to be soldier,
a combatant for my liberty,
others, I suppose, that I was selfish as sin,
courteous like kindness, and furious as a frustrated phantom,
maybe they'll say I was gay or anticompliance,
I do not dare require truth, fact or fiction from my bifurcated biographers,
I only ask for their breath,
their rosey & ruse recollections of my life so stark,
let them say that they knew me,
let them say that I lived,
that I lived lovingly, lonesomely, and learnedly,
let them witness my reality like laughter in the dark -
J.A.B.
Often mocked as stupid
I am always faced with
the idea i am missing
something worth knowing.
I go to work. I do my job.
Preached to standards higher
than I can conceive,
I am everywhere and I believe
what I hear when
media gurus deceive
and try to convince me
that they stand for values
their own biographers deny.
I watch leaders praised
and forgiven for crimes
that would destroy me.
I go to work. I do my job.
I see my hours cut.
I raise children who
go to work and do their job
and are passed over for promotion
by someone who promises to do more
with less, downsizes, lays waste
and jumps to another position
before the destruction
can be assessed.
I go to work. I do my job
and I am the bedrock
on which the rest of society
dances.
Sometimes I go "postal".
On those days, everyone says
that they just don't understand.
"He was just so steady, never late
for work, always did his job."