(To the tune of “Jingle Bells”)
Dashing through my tasks,
In a cubicle so tight,
I hear the coffee slosh,
Another deadline fight.
Bells from emails ring,
I can’t ignore the sound,
Oh, what fun it is to sprint
Through tasks that come around!
(Chorus)
Single spells, single spells,
Typing all the way!
Oh, what fun it is to pray
For lunch to save the day—HEY!
Single spells, single spells,
Bosses want it fast,
Why did I say I’d stay this late?
This day will never pass!
A week ago today,
I thought I had it done,
But then the boss exclaimed,
“Redo it, just for fun!”
I clenched my teeth and smiled,
(That’s what professionals do),
Then daydreamed of my holiday
And flights to Timbuktu!
(Chorus)
Single spells, single spells,
Typing all the way!
Oh, what fun it is to pray
For lunch to save the day—HEY!
Single spells, single spells,
Deadlines never end,
Guess I’ll sing this little song
Until my sanity bends!
Freddie the furlough
Sat there with his Merlot
Watching the sun go up and down
While his body got tan and brown
They said they had full control
That is what Freddie the Furlough was told
Sitting in his cubicle one day
They came over to say, ‘you are still going to get pay’
Are you asking me to take an absentee leave?
Despite my hourly wages having not much of a fee
It is time for you to go
They repeated to Freddie the Furlough
You do not need me
I do see
Without a tear
Freddie the Furlough got up having no fear
Tired of all this shtick
Considered office tricks
Freddie the Furlough knew he performed his tasks
Honestly not needing to hide behind any corporate flask
Resulting in wearing the afternoon mask
Freddie the Furlough did not fold
Instead he was pretty bold
In dealing with this feeling of cold
From this job they thought he loved
And in reality the one he was ready to shove
Freddie the Furlough
Finished his Merlot
With enough cash in his tin
And knowing that the day was a win
Entitling Freddie the Furlough to a Jimmy Buffet happy hour fin
Gray cube
Gray shoes
Gray faces
A Colorless existence
Full of ugliness
Full of regret
Except for her
With blue eyes
So bright
they hurts to look at
with a eyes so bright
It hurts to hope
A glimpse of something beautiful
A glimpse of something unattainable
In a gray world
It's only her
Whose color makes life worth living
We worked together
in the airless cubicle gulag
on the surface of the moon
during the last ice age
Diligently scurrying under
the bright artificial lights
composing odes to poverty
with great purpose and poise
Dodging the executive ghouls
who skulked the narrow halls
Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff
howling as the villagers fled
But there he would be
in a state of perpetual calm
absorbing the vortex of chaos
a tall black-skinned Buddha
Always the one to rise above
the daily details and deviations
always keeping his balance
even with one foot in the air
An open and private man
I never got to know well
some glimpses and peeks
but the film never developed
Filled with a sly dry humor
engaged to illuminate not shame
the spark in his dark pupils
came from a clarity of heart
His was a living credo of resolve
of stepping back not rushing forward
an involved evolving philosophy
in quiet and thoughtful motion
I will miss him
I will think of him
whenever I take a leap
and am not sure where to land
We work inside a cubicle.
Our faces bathed in bluish glow
Like corpses at a funeral,
But if we're dead we don't yet know.
Instead we numbly press on keys
Within our lidless coffin row.
Complacency is our disease
For nothing changes day to day;
A truth a habit guarantees.
Yet soon this herd with faces gray,
These mindless, faceless, zombie-men,
Will shuffle off each on their way
To find our peace, some rest, but then
Once more at eight we'll rise again.
4 25 2019
Quirky Tercets Contest
Oh, pencil pusher,
your meager ambitions are few
Looking across the human prairie
what do you office see?
Your cubicle is left of center,
on the low rung of the corporate ladder
Middle management is not your destiny,
mornings are your richest coffee coronations
You revel in the small talk
carried to your cubicle by the gossip pigeons
Such a downcast view
you have of society
Two week vacations are your highest aspirations
Such a broad, bustling view
you have beset in front of you
But business chatter never interest
your backwater occupational view
Sitting in your cluttered, square chateau,
you envy not the frenzied activity
of the driven few
Those who fight to swim upstream,
unlike you ... just single tasking
and fluorescent basking
Being a cubicle fly,
curious buzzes always catches your eye
What’s the latest sordid affair
fumigating the office air,
this intrigues you mightily
Who made the fateful, fireable mistake
that cost the company a bundle,
this is your lure cast over the carpet lake
A quaint view from a cubicle,
with your clock ticking,
until it’s time for the next lunch break
Thirty years
stuck in a basement corner cubicle
Now retirement is on a countdown approach
Seems all you can do lately
is dream about that burnt gold convertible
Going from zero to sixty in a heartbeat
gives you a sugar express rush
To bad the office years didn’t go that fast
Making coffee for the staff,
coming in first, leaving out last
kept your job safe through all of the
reorganization shuffles
You knew the corporate drill
better than you let on —
New bosses love old hired hands
People come, people go ...
so it is in business also
Dot.com fast, market share growth slow
Hedge funds looking to be trimmed,
projection for profits got a narrow window
But you don’t care much
for those company Byzantine things no more
You’re ready to flee the cubicle,
hop into the shiny new convertible —
and burn rubber ... go go go
Head for the wide open spaces,
spread your wings and soar like an eagle
Making the dream come true:
from cubicle to convertible
I don't have much to say anymore...
My routine has become me...
I toil under the artificial light...
In the mountains but longing the sea...
I've wanted to speed up the oppressive time...
But sometimes I've wanted it to slow...
I've walked miles under the blazing sun...
Yet my mind is on a cool plateau...
Everything is the same...
Changes rush over me like a flooded stream...
No one looks at me...
By noon I will surely scream...
I work with a mechanical rhythm...
Usually in 6/6 time...
I sludge through my daily chaos...
My mind is my partner in crime...
The clock ticks by with it's subtle grin...
As rusty thoughts drip through my head...
I'm just another number in a cubicle maze...
I'm another headline that remains unread...
click click, click click, tick-tock, tick-tock,
the clock seems to tick not as fast as one wants,
the air conditioner stops now they can hear you chew,
after the first week, you knew this wasn't the right job for you.
two years go by, collectively this repetition makes the time fly
but each day feels like two weeks in the mind,
a backwards reality, a 21st century tragedy, too much of this will make one mad you see, its just not natural - self destruction will take place gradually
in search of a new end goal, something nourishing to the soul, perhaps a little creative control, a bit more spiritual, and a little less ritual,
how about less them, and a little more you, knowing you have the ability to pursue anything you want to do, but for now you keep your head down just trying to see the day through and then forcefully recoup - praying the IT department doesn't notice you scrolling down poetry soup:)
Computer why are you not turning on?
Now you’re on. – meh
Opening programs before I log in.
Sometimes it is repeated more than once.
An interval of 15 minutes or more..
Finally everything is running .
It is a miracle.
The phone is older than the movie ‘Ghost.’
Surprisingly it has no dust (haha)
No to boast
Oh not to boast
Each one is in a island elbow to elbow like Hawaii
A chain it is
Marx would laugh
Oh yes he would
Every day we come to our island
Our little isola di cubicle – meh
Isola di cubicle!
The Noose is tightening.
The 5’s and 10’s yanked from our hands and aching backs
Are spent on band-aids:
A last stand effort to plug the holes in our hearts
When the price of drowning is only getting higher
So we turn to tiny acts of thievery
Taxes prettied up, cashiers uncorrected,
Stealing at the edges because we’re backed into corners,
Corners
Glittering with promises corners
Dripping with possibility,
With Island resort wallpaper
Sold in bulk at Wal-Mart for
Profit: A trail of crumbs called America-
Which has curdled our souls and we love it!
And hate it and gossip about it and think obsessively about it and then
We find the most expensive friends our looks can afford,
Shopping for substance (50% off)
Staring through the eye of a screen
Light speed in pursuit of heaven on earth (Ignore the plastic)-
Until pop!
We die of ADHD.
Never having had the chance to smell the genetically modified roses.
Never having had the chance to see through this kingdom of ideas
As we served out our sentence to life in cubicle.
Jacob Reinhardt
10/24/2013
There once was a boss who was bald
yet thought himself stoutly ribald.
The dweebs who worked for him
were hairy and liked gin.
Was not news to hear that boss falled.
I need to stay
In a love cubicle, and
Excitingly write
Love's innermost recesses
Where passion, joy and love rules!
thumb tacked , tackled some say by the thumb,
a
bullied pencil pusher sitting upright at mid afternoon.
so thin his ergonomic spinal robot as he leans back
in his plastic office chair.
peering around the corner, around the darkened tan
hedges of the cubicled garden.
now the carpet does not have thorns but the walls
have thier prickled memo tacks.
the aroma of a polynesian wilderness steams
off of a coffee pot down the isle.
he leans back further to a tipping point,
he has a sense of expectation.
on the wall there is a clock with very
ordinary numbers and hands.
he watches them and drifts a little around the
room to evade the god of all square candled boxes.
he loses himself momentarily in a thinly cast shadow
from a window three cubicles down.
like an ethereal black drape it reaches out to him with
dilicate fingers it breaks up the mundane spaces.
just outside of its grasp a silver cord shimmers,
a tiny spider spins its fibrous faith carefully.
its diligent silk web hung along the ceiling
simple as a puritan church.
He rides amid gray fabric canyons
In the cubicles of his mind—
Just provin’ himself an office hand
Among the others of his kind.
His plains are far as he can stretch arms
And touch each side with fingertips—
His range is that brand new cubicle,
With that he has to come to grips.
He’s just herdin’ that old computer
In the open range of his brain—
Without all those old-time western dreams
He surely would wind up insane.
His cubicle’s all full of posters
Of old silver screen cowboy stars—
Western memorabilia and more,
That keep him away from booze and bars.
They say he’s a cubicle cowboy
And they may be ‘bout half way right—
Because in his mind he’s a cowboy
Till he rides away in the night.
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