#979 - on workaholism

 

11.ix.22

979

2.253

on workaholism

 

you might find this hard to accept

but some people treat me

as if I were on holidays all the time

(mustn’t say ‘retired’)

 

guess it must be my happy go lucky

pyjama swagger joie de vive

drunk all hours

on just life

kind of … what’s the word I’m looking for?

isn’t that the point?

 

actually I’m always working

… if I’m awake, I am hard at it

 

alert, in all senses, to possibility

 

asleep I’m also beavering

do some of my best that way

 

then half awake and half asleep

crepuscularly there

 

on my way to work, I work

I play when I get to wherever I am

when I knock off too

 

it’s not necessary any of these things are noticed

in fact much of my activity is technically unobservable

 

I go alone with my thoughts

and sometimes labour an idea

 

a line will take me for a jog

up hill and down dale

who knows where we’ll go?

I get dragged along

all good exercise!

you can come along too

 

people think

‘he’s having a good time

so that can’t be work’

 

of course I put words in their mouths

it’s part of my job

and if I don’t, who will?

all that jazz…

 

I remember those late night corridors

would greet me with ‘you work so hard’

then I would ask ‘but what are you doing here?

all fun and games

 

I do know some people have really shit jobs

that there’s so much indignity

before we even get to injustice

 

but how honest is toil anyway?

it’s almost always at behest

 

I may be a tad short of perruque

but I’ve largely dispensed with alienation

 

it’s true I’m just hanging about with these words

it’s true I might often have to ask

where in the day am I (?)

 

big targets are the least observed

and when you’re a repeat offender

 

skip soul

just be the singing master

 

I get these little enthusiasms

clockwork regular too

 

there is no market value

 

I only hope I’m embarrassing you

 

I am building the house of the poem

there’s nothing at all to explain