Long Pink slip Poems

This page shows my writing process and is part of Poetrysoup's first workshop.  The workshop's intent is to reveal how revision strengthens a poem. Constructive feedback can be a gift.  Should any journal...

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"Some Timely Advice"


         Long ago when I was young
               some good advice 
...

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Right up until you were honest 
I found hope in the regressing of your sentences 
From fine wine to a poisoned chalice 
Remembering you in the corner of the grocery store 
Sparked the overwhelming urge...

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(Unsigned, Sealed, and Delivered)

Part 1:
Oh I worked several years at Atari (1)
Always thinking, "It's too good to last,"
Bushnell's (2) leaving - hand writing on rampart -
Though momentum would carry us past.

Nolan's (2) vision was not...

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have you ever felt like you've been set up?
have you ever felt like you've taken the fall?
you're angry, in denial, frustrated and fed up
while you're so-called friends are out having a ball

but when God sets...

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more the norm than the exception
in this wonderful capitalist rape room
where coming into work can mean
leaving early without a job & a
pink slip, with a pat on the back & a
“thanks for being such a...

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I see an angry country that is ready to explode,
And if things don’t change it will happen and not much further down the road.
I see a country that is not willing to give up its...

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By the end of August or early September,
I'll be handed a pink slip, to keep my sanity:
I must be a quick thinker to help me see clearer;
many plans scribbled on my lineless pad:
good fortune and...

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I bet you didn't know that the 7 dwarfs
Used to work for Santa Claus
Yep, they all got fired from the north pole
Cause they kept breaking too many laws

See, Doc was the north pole physician
He tended...

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What kind of gobbledegulp, 
holiday mess,
are you stuffing down your jaw giblets — 
one day early ...
you human turkey

Cubicle farm-raised patsy policies
is what your top executive, tinfoil hat fool handlers
are serving you 
lower oven rack...

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The love me and you shared expired years ago
The many times I spent attempting to love you
Didn't really mean anything to you so my love we are through
Just like a plague you destroy everything you...

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Marginalized middle finger people
moving upwardly mobile
on a quality-of-life escalator going always down

Mall pallbearers for the palladium pocketeers,
(them who bring forth weekly pocket tears)
Three-piece suit gator claws with Wall Street wolf ears

Kiss-the-ring finger people
trying to climb...

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Everyone says there must be something better
They look over their shoulder and wipe the dust of their sweater
Not the dust of manual labor
From sitting on a shelf, contact paper

No better way to make change that...

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The Reality of Married Life

By Elton Camp

An idealized view of marriage causes creation
For young folks of an impossible expectation
That all will be lovey-dovey for day after day
And that it will always stay just that same...

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I think I'll die before I live
from time to time, I suppose
life seems more take than give
a cynical opinion sometimes shows

Michael, Gabriel or Azrael may
come to bring me my pink slip
and leave my future in...

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Baseball cards
a rubber band,
an 1894 Indian head penny

the aroma of cheap tobacco
filled the bottom of an old cigar box
my box of dreams where no one else could go

when I was grown the box became a...

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At the 5:00 whistle
When the sunset in late November
Is less light and more molten
Like a blast-furnace window
Glowing above the highway home

Goo spilling from its sparkling ladle
Bent
At the off-ramp’s arthritic elbow

The city smolders
Under
The backs and braces...

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and he was a legend wherever he went, polite, good looking and with a certain killer style, they all loved him, his ways, his humor but most of all because he didn't compete with them....easy...

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People walk by me
Occasionally pausing to stare
At something that will never be theirs
Smiling heart shaped lips
Almond eyes and I swear to longevity 
These will outlast everything
Turning my head and I eavesdrop 
I fall in love...

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Low-level office drone,
you move cautiously in the corporate hive
Never bringing any attention to yourself,
especially when the pink slip memos fly by
The queen bee of your department,
protects her workers very well
Although from time to time,
she has...

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The alarm goes off with an earsplitting ring,
It’s five in the morning, I can’t see a thing,
I rise reluctantly from my comfortable bed,
And take two aspirin to ease my head,

I walk around clumsily like any...

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Got free range to roam 
in a plastic dome, poorhouse farm
The debt fence keeps rooster clock me 
from payment parachute, golden eggs liberty 
Oh, such pecking order karma harm

It’s a butcher’s credit card discount
when it...

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Inspired by and sung to "The Whip It" tune by Devo.

CRACK that old age whip
Give it a pink slip,
Step on an elliptical,
Old age shouldn't have come this quick!

Now whip your bod,
into shape,
tone it up,
its not...

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inside of the line of fire
i recognize my mistakes
i wish that i would have corrected them earlier
a woman's mind and expression while hurt will render you speechless like a broken heart in post
the afterthought and...

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you came out of nowhere
yet you had been there all along
all the time looking at me
at the place where we worked

i never took notice of you
as i played my social games
as i did my work...

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