Story Poem
“There is a lot of anger in here which animates the poem. It definitely tells a story and identifies characters, placing them in action. What I like most are the quoted lines (which you should put within quotes). They sound like real conversation, making the story move efficiently even as they characterize the speakers.When you revise for Module 6, focus on getting rid of excess words and uninteresting phrases. As a poet, edit the actual events--there is no need to recount things exactly as they happened but rather the way they work best in the poem. Also, you have too many line breaks which interfere with the continuity of the story--many of these could be combined for longer lines and shorter stanzas. You actuallly have a fairly long time frame and a long development as you provide a sense of what goes on, then the firing, then the period after being fired while you are still there. Think about compressing each segment so that the language becomes tighter. Finally, work on the ending which seems rather anticlimactic. A sense of the self also should be included, not just the decision to go back to school. It's also a rather flat line. Still, you did an excellent job at this stage of the poem!”
I cut out what I could but tried to leave enough to make it a still understandable story poem. What I try to say in the second “stanza (?)” is that we are led to believe that if you work there long enough, you can become a salesman, and ascend from your lowly status as a warehouse worker, but then suddenly someone new appears, someone with sales experience appears, to take an available position over the warehouse workers who have been there for a decade or more. I don’t think it was effective yet I imagery of the “dirty warehouse worker”. I think it also projects what I believed other people were thinking or saying, showing my insecurity, eventually showing someone who got fired from a place they hated anyway. I tried to combine lines that had similar ideas or seemed to go together, yet keep some things by themselves for emphasis. For instance third stanza, “desperately” by itself, forth stanza “their hostile advice” by itself. I tried to create a more climatic and visual ending to the poem.
Ode to City Electric (revised)
“This is a great place to work”, they say with a straight face.
“Someday you can become a salesman too”
Making the owner millions, sitting at a comfortable desk
a leisurely working pace.
Then someone appears one day, “to learn the computer system”
To take the comfortable place of one of those
Calm and contented office workers
Sitting at a desk in a room upstairs,
Who shrink in fear of you on the stairwell,
“Dirty warehouse worker, unfit to breathe the same air”,
these words ring in my ear.
“Why are you taking so long?”
I search high and low
desperately
for something not there.
“Are you blind?”
“Is the prescription on those glasses up to date?”
We by the virtue of being employees
Of the great City Electric
Can get a 15 percent discount at Lens crafters
stupid, sightless fool.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for,
“Search the area nearby where the computer says it should be”,
their hostile advice.
“Develop powers of clairvoyance, remote viewing,
Telepathy, telekinesis”, my mind says there’s no other way
To succeed in this place.
Tell Farnham the boss
when you’re on your lunch break,
All the things you’ve confessed.
In what you foolishly thought
Was their confidence,
From having psychotic fantasies
To hating having to work here.
My coworkers agree
“Joe’s a fucking asshole”
Doesn’t want to listen to the blaring sports report
Doesn’t want to talk shit
Doesn’t want to hear me quote Spaceballs all day
“Let the Swartz be with you”.
Doesn’t want to take Travis’s spot
Putting away shit all day in the warehouse.
One of my coworkers who had been here
for some miserable years.
Dying to escape
From the monotony of the warehouse,
of days, months, years,
running up and down
three flights of stairs,
of the moods
of fat, moody Farnham.
“Send me please to another branch
Put me on the road
Free from this prison
I’ll do anything.
PLEASE!!!”
Hired as a backup driver,
a guy they call “Glue-stick”,
the dispatcher of this place,
some unpronounceable Balkan last name
approaches you in their midst.
“Do you know where such and such place is?”
Before you can form a thought
The others desperately and agitatedly yell,
“Oh, Oh, Oh,
I know where that is”.
When you get in the truck
And disappear
They tell the boss
“he’s a fucking punk”,
Said “you are an asshole
As well”.
Wednesday my favorite day,
the only day they let me drive.
So I make it last
the whole of the day.
Day trip to the Rochester store,
stop at the rest area,
then after the delivery
picking up half of what
you delivered last week
as a return,
tearing off as fast as I can
to stop at the diner
down the street for brunch,
coming back to jealous co-workers
who spent the whole day
running up and down
three flights of stairs.
talking shit about you
behind your back
Terminated after the holidays
for “poor performance”.
But we’re so nice
“We’ll let you work out
your last two weeks”.
Their mistake.
Big mistake.
Now I get paid to lolly gag
more aggressively than before.
Smashing bulbs,
graffiti the place.
Harvesting batteries.
Do you want to buy some back?
I have so many
They’ll go bad before I can ever use them.
What was I thinking?
Stuffing boxes of them
down my pants, behind my belt,
inside my pants,
front and sometimes back.
One on each side of my jacket,
in pockets that welcomed them.
On and off for months
as the weather got cold,
then two or three times a day
after I was “laid off”
How about some flashlights?
So many dumps
I have worked in.
Sweated,
bled,
And cried when I got home.
This lesson before me
for so many years,
unwilling to learn.
The one that finally sunk in.
The only way to escape?
“Get yourself
a Bachelor’s Degree,”
I write all over the warehouse
on my last day,
with my stolen Sharpie.
Ode to City Electric (original)
This is a great place to work,
They say with a straight face.
Someday you can become a salesman too
Making the owner Sandy millions,
sitting at a comfortable desk
working at a leisurely pace.
Then someone appears one day, you’re told
To learn the computer system
To take the comfortable place of one of those
calm, content people
Sitting at a desk in one of those rooms upstairs,
Who shrink in fear of you on the stairwell,
Dirty warehouse worker,
Unfit to breathe the same air.
Why are you taking so long
Filling orders?
Searching high and low
for something not there.
But according to the computer it is,
Are you blind?
Is the prescription on those glasses you wear
Up to date?
We by the virtue of being employees
Of the great City Electric
Can get a 15 percent discount at Lens crafters
You sightless, stupid fool.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for,
Search the area nearby
Where the computer says it should be.
Develop the powers of clairvoyance, remote viewing,
Telepathy, telekinesis.
My coworkers agree
He’s a fucking asshole
Doesn’t want to listen to the blaring sports report
Doesn’t want to talk shit
Doesn’t want to hear me quote
Spaceballs all day
“Let the Swartz be with you”.
Doesn’t want to take Travis’s spot
Putting away shit
all day in the warehouse.
One of my coworkers who had been here
for some miserable years.
Dying to escape
From the monotony of the warehouse,
of days, months, years,
running up and down three flights of stairs,
of the moods of fat, moody Farnham.
Send me please to another branch
Put me on the road
Free from the prison of the warehouse
I’ll do anything. PLEASE!!!
Tell Farnham the boss
when you’re on your lunch break,
All the things you’ve confessed.
In what you foolishly thought
Was their confidence,
From having psychotic fantasies
To hating having to work here.
Hired as a backup driver,
a guy they call “Glue-stick”,
the dispatcher of this place,
his name some unpronounceable
Balkan last name
comes up to you in their midst.
“Do you know where such and such place is?”
Before you can form a thought
The others desperately and agitatedly
yell, “Oh, Oh, Oh, I know where that is”.
Wednesday my favorite day,
the only day they let me drive.
So I make it last the whole of the day.
Day trip to the Rochester store,
stop at the rest area,
then after your delivery
picking up half of what
you delivered last week as a return,
then tearing off as fast as I can
to stop at the diner down the street for brunch,
coming back to jealous co-workers
who spent the whole day
talking shit about you behind your back
as they spent the day
running up and down three flights of stairs.
Terminated after the holidays
for “poor performance”.
But we’re so nice
“We’ll let you work out your last two weeks”.
Their mistake.
Big mistake.
Now I get paid to lolly gag
more aggressively than before.
Smashing bulbs,
graffiti the place.
"Harvesting" batteries.
Do you want to buy some back?
I have so many
They’ll go bad before I can ever use them.
What was I thinking?
Stuffing boxes of them
down my pants, behind my belt,
inside my pants,
front and sometimes back.
One on each side of my jacket,
in pockets that seemed to welcome them.
On and off for months as the weather got cold,
then two or three times a day
after I was told I was “laid off”
How about some flashlights?
So many dumps like this
I have worked in.
Sweated,
Sometimes bled,
And cried when I got home.
This lesson existed before me,
for so many years,
unwilling to learn.
The only way to escape?
The one that finally sunk in.
Go back to school.
Get yourself
a Bachelor’s Degree.
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