And I'll recite a couple of poems, one
about working at a rather nice place and one
about working in an advertising agency.
"On Trading Time for Life by Work."
"The receptionist has shiny fingernails,
since she has buffed them up for hours,
not for profit but for art, while they, the partners,
have been arguing themselves to further into ruthless paranoia.
The accountant said, the sales representatives
have come out against the mustard yellow.
It looks like baby shit and won as ever.
In the studio, the artist, art director, and the copy chief
are wondering out loud whether a Peace on Earth,
or a Love and Peace on Earth should go around
the trumpeting angel on the Christmas card.
In this way, the greeting card company
worked back and forth across our first spring afternoon
like a ferry boat on the river.
Time was passing, it itself was staying the same,
and workers rode it on the running depths
while going nowhere back and forth across the surface
of the river.
Profits flow away in this game, and thank God there
was none of the transcendence printed on the products."