9 o'clock finally
the break room buzzes dismally
two eldery women share a ziploc bag
of dog biscuits
Raimund crouches to roll a joint
while Fred the stutterer
stares sadly at the classifieds
not reading a single word
circling random entries in a red sharpie
sometimes, we dream about vacuum cleaners
sprouting out of lotuses and lifting themselves to the shelves.
sometimes, we cannot picture our own mothers
and in their places snarl the moon-faces
of obese Marthas in sportsbras and lavender shorts.
the aisles sprawl out like vast
funeral hallways lined with ugly pubic flowers,
plastic coffins lifted with pallet jacks.
but someday the parking lots will be empty,
and someday the last truck will leave
leaving a puddle of residue that gleams like a rainbow
in the moonlight.
Author notes
I've been working second shift at Walmart most of the summer and it is incredibly depressing.
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 13 of 13
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my brother spent a summer home with my mother several years back- he went to kmart for easy employment
started the job
and was his usual boisterous, well spoken, well loved self.. he was told to please stop asking the customers if they needed help.. that was not store policy and they didnt want him setting a new bar.
god love those stores.
good poem
m
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I often wonder if the mother of that Wal-Mart baby ever took her back to the scene or if she just told her it was somewhere on 5th Avenue to give her a better perspective of how her life would be sigh...now I'm depressed but not over the write, that is just a pearl.
C
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"sometimes, we dream about vacuum cleaners
sprouting out of lotuses and lifting themselves to the shelves"
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I think that this is very good. You've captured it.
I've started to think that the last lines of a poem can shape the whole experience way out of proportion - I particularly like this ending, because there is an inversion - a positive image in the shape of a negative one. It's subtle and very effective, especially because the understatement creates doubt about that positiveness.
Wicked.
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Ah, I can empathise with Fred the Stutterer.
Oh god, what are you on? (This is the official Walmart questionnaire, so be careful.) Seriously: vacuum cleaners sprouting out of lotuses? It's beautiful all the same: one is Zen and one gathers the Dust, and who's to know which is which? Pubic flowers are splendid. "Rainbow in the moonlight": hmmm ... you might want to end on something zingier. I'd like to see Raimund and Fred develop as characters: they are just mooching at the moment, in a Beckett/Luc Besson type landscape of urban absurdity/banality, etc. You are still writing startling things, please continue, yes yes. Me likes this sort of thingy.
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you are a wonderful story telling able to evoke brilliant images and drawing the reader closer to the flame. Great gift and superb writing.
David
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One time Lute put in an application for Wal-mart, he was incredibly desperate you understand, this was back before they had the little computer that mass produced lists of rejects. Anyways!--dat Lute he filled out the apllication with his usual lies about what a swell team player he was and all that, and then he filled out their little questionaire about being tricksey to uncover whether you was lying about being a swell team player (which one would think a communist would be)--and they had one question that was really sneaky: it say, What is worse smoking a joint, or drinking a shot of liquor? a. same. b. liquor. c. joint. d. none of the above. Lute he figger they want smokin a joint is worse, but he not say that, having seen first hand the effects of alcohol, and being stoned more than once on the job, but he not say what they want, nopey. He say "the same" Uh,oh. Interviewer guy goes straight to that question, asks me again: Lute brave, he say, "Same", interviewer screws up his pimply face makes mark on paper, Lute, sadly remains unemployed.
But!...Story has happy ending, cause Lute not have to work for Wal-mart, which is the Great & Holy Temple of the American People, while at the same time being The Great Satan to the rest of the world. or at least his face on Earth.
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way better..."in their places" than "in their place" for a number of reasons. places is correct and also couples up much more sexily with "faces".
Sports bras and lavender shorts. I was in that band. You may have seen us at metro when we opened for The Staplegun Dishwashers.
"leave leaving" at the end there is pleasantly syncopated and contains just the right amount of language defiance, I think, but "of residue" might go. Why not just puddle? We have all seen the oily rainbow in the parking lot and, thus, need only the tiniest nudge.
The parking lots at Wal-Mart will never be empty, I'm afraid.
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stunning
Was it my imagination or was there another poem on here yesterday as well? I swear there was one, I’m sure I remember thinking I had two catch up on tomorrow (meaning today). Hm. Please re-post it if there was in fact another poem…my Hannah fixes are so few and far between, I need every little hit I can get!
This is such a strong piece…which is funny, really, as the feelings it stirs in the reader aren’t anything to do with strength – it’s bleak, in the way that any meaningless routine becomes bleak…workaday, wearisome…it just completely sums up the idea of this monotonous, hand-to-mouth existence. And you’re almost…reporting it, I suppose…meaning that you’re not relying on any particular poetic devices to get your point across, or resorting to any clichés, you’re just…telling it as you see it. And that emphasises the slow, sighing, shifting, lacklustre feeling behind the poem…it’s like, why bother? You know? I don’t mean that the poem itself doesn’t bother, not at all – I’m not explaining myself very well here – it’s as beautifully written and precise as your poems always are. It’s just…the tone, maybe. The tone seems to mirror the content…and it all seems terribly depressing and defeated and thankless.
“stares sadly at the classifieds” stung – such a lovely, simple line, but it spoke volumes – this bored, miserable guy circling away at the classifieds but not really looking at what he’s circling so that in a way, that’s just another part of his everyday routine…and the circles – I don’t know whether this was intentional or just happy coincidence – were a deft touch, implying circuits and cycles and inescapable patterns. The use of the names was also effective – “Raimund crouches to roll a joint
while Fred the stutterer…” – you make us aware that these are more than just drones working for a pittance in a Walmart store, they’re people with names…but then on the flip side of that, their names almost serve as just another label, just something-that-is rather than something-that-means-something…which I think is what makes the poem so striking; that empty, what-is-the-point feeling, which you’ve got down so simply and so clearly.
Lovely, lovely, lovely.
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It does sound pretty depressing, and you sure chose the right words and phrases to drive the imagery home.
I especially enjoyed the part about aisles sprawling out and being lined with pubic flowers. Who enjoys that? hmm
There is one line that made my mind jump:
"circling random entries in a red sharpie"
After reading it a couple times I looked at it two ways. Either you meant "with" instead of "in" so it was a typo of sorts. Or (the more appealing thought) you meant "in", which I think is a rather interesting way of describing that because it can't really be circled *in* a sharpie.. or can it? Yes, I think poetry can make it happen.
Well thanks for this.
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Oh my God, this is more depressing than Sodium Vapor lights on vacant lot.
You need another line of work...thought about writing?
:-)
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This is absolutely stunning. I worked a kitchen job at a prep school for awhile, and while there wrote a number of poems about the people I'd run into. For me, it was this very odd contrast between rich prep school children and the kitchen workers, the odd hierarchy of dish boy to head cook. Kyle used to smoke weed out of apples on our breaks; Raimund reminded me of that.
I like how you say "we", not "they". That is the important element in writing this kind of poetry....you really have to feel it, really have to mean it. The only difference between myself and the woman who prepped salads was that I could see that this was a dismal dead end and she could not (either by complacent choice or need).
I like all the "b" and "p" sounds in this. There is something hard and dull about those letters....but something, in the right context that gives them a sharp velocity, a twist a turn, when needed.
The "someday" could be the end of the night, or, it could be some hopeful light of the future when we are less of a Walmart-driven society. I like how it could be either. I read it initially as the latter, but it is such a benign and unremarkable occurrence (empty parking lot, trucks out for the night) that it could easily be read either way.
So much good here. I might come back and leave more later, when I get back to MA. I'm so tired of Texas.
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there is definitely something undefinable & wholly depressing about that kind of middle-america feeling, and "normal"/"average" americans in general.....i guess it goes back to kerouac & that kind of mad expostulation of the true nature of america, the wildness of it, versus this sort of calm acceptance of fate and passivity......
but is the wild screaming for glory REALLY what america is about? sometimes i don't think america exists at all. it's definitely in the mind of the beholder.
the last two lines are SO AMAZING, though. it reminds me of the time you told me you were on mushrooms & saw the river and it looked like gasoline, or something like that. so epic, profound, in that kind of little/(in)significant way that poets lust after so.
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