In Here For Service

Morning slaps me awake and I embark on another day,
the shower rinses away the weekend twice,
breakfast is a blur of toast and juice,
and the tram won't pardon my tardy shoes -
my employer never hurries.

I equip my humaneness in the armour of irony
and drift into the corporate glasshouse
mingling with those who nurture the company's slogan like an illness,
before the lift swallows us
and spews me onto the routine floor.

Another shift to scratch through to the afternoon,
clocks spit time from all angles,
I socialize a path to my dormant terminal,
supervisors lurk among their paperwork
sensing my errant arrival -
I greet them with a sneaking joke
and this excuse fades on their lips as I settle my arse.

In this systematic environment
where my employer's goals shape the foliage
into the words it recommends,
a swarm of voices
attends on customers
who anticipate flowering service
as their enquiries sprout through the fertile phone-lines.

But telecommunications displace reality,
boredom infests the atmosphere,
my imagination despatches postcards from elsewhere,
as callers burden my ears with requests, grievances, and disasters.
I maintain my charming indifference,
I urge the minutes to spin me into freedom,
I hear those sweet dollars tick over.

so many
unaware of this company's manipulation
to fatten its shareholders

so many
blind to the issues of fine print

so many
assume this company offers solutions they can drink

when in a cinematic moment
my hand drives through the phone-lines
and clutches their necks
to shake them until common sense appears -
yet faith in illusion
wilts after I taste true humanity.

Ah, to escape this employer -
the mere thought is joy.
But with the lack of professional marks
and drawing from my resources as an artist,
respectable income kisses me like a reward

when
emptiness and tedium diminish while
I'm lost in a smoking lull

when
sections of my brain ask:
"What? Are we meant to be working?"

when
I am a vague entity
in a world where the lust for profit
fosters a strange philosophy:
as a shit-kicker I must earn my lifestyle
like an insect