Poetry from J.T. Whitehead

from "The Second Book of Job"


I. 


Everyone gets to be Job for a year.  

Or more.  Gets to feel that trembling and fear 

of losing it all, watching it get lost.

Everyone learns that lesson.  Knows that cost.

 

You’re not alone when the divorce lawyer 

warns about the marital home.  Or you’re 

not alone, when you learn another boss 

governs the universe – and not you.  Loss 

 

is inevitable.  But it’s what’s next 

that no one remembers.  We get the shit.

We forget the growth.  So never forget 

that in the end you might just get a sexed 

 

up mate who loves you more than anyone 

who ever did.   With all those others done.

 

 *

 from "The Second Book of Job"

II.

 

Job Junior lost the marital home when

He and his Ex- were in arbitration

and this clause became paragraph 3 (B),

in the Clerk-filed dissolution decree,

cause 49 dash 33, CV,

and a “you” and an “I” replaced a “we.”

 

He transferred thirty-eight thousand dollars,

and he intuited things could be worse,

 

much worse.  Put one thousand books –  poetry,

Literature, drama, philosophy – 

 

Into storage.  He took the last unit,

next to the dumpster, the only model

not re-modeled.  Sat down with a bottle

on the porch.  Impoverished and moonlit.  

 

*

from "The Second Book of Job"



III.


 

Job’s losses left him as blind as Homer

or Milton and now he is the owner

of very little.  Someday his awareness

will match that of the poets.  He has less

 

to carry homeward, and has no homeward

to speak of.  It’s impossible to look

back without becoming frozen.  His Book

is closed.  To lose faith, okay, but the Word?

 

It was lost as well.  So at the machine,

for a spell, staring at the keys, the screen,

and his hands, it all came out gibberish:

“NIGHT OLD MAN HATE MONEY WHITE LUSTY DISH. . .”

 

For now, it was just blindness, no insight.

That spirit of Homer would have to wait.

 

 *

 from "The Second Book of Job"

IV.

 

This particular Job, losing ‘The Word,’

just let it all rip and let it all out.

Typed away.  Just squeezed out every turd

that fell out of his mental ass.  About 

 

midnight he filled three pages’ worth:

HOTEL BILLS . . .  SAME ROOM . . . WEDDING NIGHT . . . HORSE TRACK . . .

ROUTE TO THE HEART . . . MILLIONAIRE . . . HE GETS IT . . . 

FREE LOVE . . . MONEY FOR THE PONIES . . . YOU SAY

 

MORE ANAL . . .  TALK ABOUT THE SECOND BIRTH . . .

I WAS NOT THERE FOR THE FIRST . . . TAKEN BACK

IN TIME . . . DIRTY UNDERWEAR . . . ODD DEBTS . . . SHIT . . .

WHAT’S HAPPPENING . . . DO I DOUBT . . . DO I PRAY . . . 

 

HELL . . . PURGATORY . . .  PURGATORY . . . HELL . . .

 

But she was gone.  He knew things would end well.

 

 *

 from "The Second Book of Job"

VI.


 

Another Job lost seven days with each

of 2 sons out of every two weeks.

“Fifty-fifty fair” made it hard to bitch

but he did anyway, however weak

 

it left him feeling.  And the Ex- would switch

this day for that day so many days

that he recognized a slow, distinct leak

in his clock, his calendar, in his haze.

 

Sanity was a thing now out of reach.

There was no point in trying to talk her 

into paying back time.  This was not her

M.O.  And he couldn’t pay the lawyer.

 

He recalled the man in the coat, the wind,

the Sun . . . that fable would win in the end.   



*

from "The Second Book of Job" 

VII.

 

Another Job lost his credit rating.

His wife decided to have an affair

with Neiman-Marcus, or women’s clothing,

generally speaking.  A millionaire

 

was the last affair.  It was spending power.

That was the deal. In an icky hour

in a hotel room beneath his pay grade

he allowed her equal status: she paid.

 

Savings accounts and college funds went down.

He learned her weakness was the winning horse.

Wads of fives and tens turned up in drawers.

(It takes a lot of paint to paint the town)

 

This Job inherited: a millionaire.

Grew bored with the track.  But loved the clothing.