Work Anxiety Dream: The Haunting
All the bar walls feel hot and achingly
alive. Even the windows are breathing,
in and out, bending as if they have been
made elastic to accommodate an impossible
move. I look into the back bar mirrors
and two of the three faces of Eve look
back at me mocking my uncertainty,
my fear that cannot accommodate
of the already low ceiling, with its fake
tin overlay, is shrinking, compressing,
inching downward into what feels like
a torture chambered night. Then all 12 of
the for-sports TV’s turn themselves onto
different horror show channels, creating
a kind of cacophonous haunting in a dozen
different tongues, each more foreign
than the next tat feels like a festival
of technicolor blood and gore only a real
human sacrifice can allay. All freezing
in place, soundless as an autoplay
on the juke cranks out the Iron Maiden
album, The Prisoner, “I’m not
a number, I’m a free man!”
Then AC/DC Hell’s Bells, then Blue
Oyster Cult, Don’t Fear the Reaper
but I do.
A Beast in the Jungle: A Work Anxiety Poem
Waking up after sleeping in
the heat, bar interiors have been
transformed into taxidermy dreams
that make no sense.
Bewildered, I feel like Captain Willard
in a Saigon hotel seeing the overhead
fans as chopper blades descending
into a jungle instead of safely, behind
the lines, where dreams are the enemy
and there is no escaping the prison he is in.
Instead of in country, I’m in the bar,
Looking over Norman Bates’ shoulder
at birds of prey poised to attack,
at pointed antlers from long dead
steers, hear the rutting elks in the zoo,
fear the mounted wild cat heads,
the rare white buffalo skins and
the signs that say: CAUTION:
DO NOT TOUCH ENDANGERED
SPECIES, as if somehow, touching
them might make them more dead
than they already are.
I can barely see what must have been
the bar beyond the walls of mounted
heads receding into the darkness with
each tentative step I take.
The darker it becomes, the louder the dead
animal noises become and the jungle
I was now in, more confining and alive.
I check my sidearm to make sure it
is still loaded and walked on.
What else could I do?
Dormitory Fire: a work anxiety poem
I can smell the smoke from a dormitory fire,
in a building that would be attached to
the second floor of the tavern where
the overflow auxiliary bar would be if we
had one.
Though it is a semester break, there are a
few kids who have no homes staying in rooms
where fire alarms would be if the smoke
and the dorms were real.
My bar back rescues what could be
saved before the blaze becomes fully
involved.
I feel justified not helping out as someone
has to stay behind to mind the store.
Still, I feel a sense of guilt though
the authorities all say, “Just as well
you didn’t get involved, the old guys
always get in the way.”
Somewhat mollified, I am confronted
by a young woman from a 40 years ago
poetry workshop insisting she is my betrothed
though we both know I am married
to someone else.
The last time I saw her, decades ago,
she had short black hair cut in a page boy
but now it is dyed purple, shaved on
one side and long on the other with
curly bangs. “I just had it done,” she says,
“how do you like it?”
I think it looks awful but I don’t say anything.
Then she wants to take her home and
do what must be done.
Whatever that might be.
We leave together but I don’t know
where we are going.
Apparently, I have no say in the matter.
“Boy, are you in for a surprise.” She says,
as if that was a good thing.
I know this is the time to object
but I don’t say anything.
There is no explanation for any of this.
Work Anxiety Dream: No Exits
The sense is that my former
employer has a No Compete
option on my professional
services but as I have been retired
for over ten years, it seems unlikely
it could be applied. Still, I feel
guilty considering the new guy’s
offer to manages as, “the obvious
choice,” of a new bar in the cellar
where my first fulltime work was.
I’m inclined to say no but
this project is intriguing.
They show me around the place
which takes about two minutes,
as there isn’t anything to see:
just a freshly painted square space
with no tables, chairs, stools or
even a functional bar. They say,
“You just have to imagine those
being there.” I’m thinking this
project has more to do with Room
than The Tavern but I reserve judgment
until I hear their pitch. “We figure
that we can get maybe 200 or so
bodies in here.” And I’m remembering
that the tavern in this space had
a max capacity of 120 and it was
wider than this one, as these new guys
seem to have figured out a way to shrink
the walls and raise the ceiling
while removing all the personal touches
that make a college bar a desirable
hang out.” What do you think?”
They ask, and all I can think of is
the fire inspectors who used to hang out
here after checking out the high rise
mausoleums at the state school that
were being used as dorms saying,
“Those buildings are fire traps but this one
is worse. Where are the fire exits?
There aren’t any anyone could get to,
is there?” I looked around, though
I knew they were right. I said to the new guys,
“200 bodies seems just about right.”
Snowbound: A Work Anxiety Dream
Maybe it was the wind in that dream
of being snowbound in the bar,
one of those dreams so real,
it’s impossible after, to remember
what was real and what was dream
as is stand watching the snow drift
on Western Avenue, no cars moving,
no people walking, no cross country
skiers, nothing but the wind and
the still leafy tree limbs snapping,
falling taking the power wires with them,
no light anywhere but half a block
where the bar is, house lights dimmed,
MTV on mute Eurythmics surreality,
“Sweet Dreams Are Made of These,”
though there is nothing sweet
about this dream once the black
curtain is drawn down across
the bar and a spot light haloes
a silent talking head like something
out of Cassavetes and we’re in
their living room improv acting,
uncomfortable closeups and heat
lamps inducing sweating fever dream
soliloquies then the light switches off
and we hear three voices like something
from a Beckett play set in a graveyard
with beer taps and Irish whiskey added,
and their voices modulate in a kind of
crazy loop tape summary of their lives
together, tales of love, and hate and
lust that death does not have the power
to end and then the ghost light behind
the bar switches off and there is nothing
but darkness, a black shroud that used
to be a curtain and the muted voices
of all the people who died here calling
for a drink.
Night Walking: a work anxiety poem
All the addresses on
the buildings are the same
All the front doors
All the curtained windows
All the store fronts
exactly the same
All geometric as pieces
of jigsaw puzzle
a lab testing rat maze
you feel as if
you are walking in
but somehow remain
rooted in place
as the walls slide by
as the storefronts
curtained windows
front doors the same
of all the buildings
with the same address
on streets without lights
you cannot move on
out of breath
wheezing
from all the efforts
of standing still
all the effort expended
going nowhere
