January 28 - Untitled Poem Borne of Anger

i want you,
Angry and brutal,
The way you treat me when we work together
(or rather when I work for you
for there is no together in what we do).

Yes, i want you.
i want you to hurt me
The way you do when you lay down your orders.
The way you told me to look into the lights.
The way you call me to your side with nothing more than my title.

Make me feel worthless that i might appreciate your attentions better.
Hurt me that i might know the simplest touch to be ecstasy.
And tell me how wrong i am that i might learn to be right

January 27 - With a Smile

            “Good morning, I’ll be right with you.”

            Melinda looked up from her ancient Blackberry.  She refused to upgrade because she liked the keyboard, even though the phone was at least seven years old (her daughter couldn’t remember a time her mother hadn’t had the phone glued to her hand, so it must have been that old.) and sometimes switched to Arabic without notice.  The alarm still went off within five minutes of the set time, but her daughter was pretty sure that would go next.

            “I’m sorry, how about a hello first?” asked Melinda, bearing her teeth in a smile that was meant to be friendly, but never quite worked for her too thin mouth. 

            “I said ‘good morning’,” responded the waitress, bewildered.

            “Oh,” responded Melinda, pulling on her blazer, “I didn’t hear you.”

            The waitress nodded slightly. “Right, well if you could follow me…”

            The waitress turned sharply as she led the family to their table.  Melinda, returned to her Blackberry, led as her daughter and husband fell into step behind her.  Crisp sunlight streamed through the open windows of the hotel restaurant as the waitress led them through the tables of businessmen.

            “Will this be alright ma’am?” asked the waitress, pulling out a chair at a corner table.

            “How about you ask that with a smile?” asked Melinda.  A saccharine tone crept between her teeth bared in the same stretched, creepy, insincere smile.

            Her daughter, Liz, tugged slightly on her sleeves as she slid into a chair at the table, eyes in her lap.  Her mother wouldn’t say no to the table, but it was best not to make eye contact with the objects of her mother’s moods. 

            “I’m … I’m sorry ma’am? Could I get you tea or coffee?” The waitress stood still, hand still gripping the chair she had pulled out for Melinda. 

            “Could you smile?”  Melinda’s face was still frozen in the same smile, the lines on her face deepening every second it spread. 

            “I’d like some coffee,” Liz said softly.

            “Same,” said her dad.

            “Two coffees, then, and…” the waitress trailed off as she averted her eyes from Melinda.

            “Earl Grey Tea.”

            Melinda slid into the chair, pulling her napkin across her lap like she had been drilled on the motion in finishing school. 

            “I thought there was a reason they called it the hospitality business,” said Melinda, the smile finally fading from her face leaving in its place a dark, haughty look. She glanced across the table as though judging the grain of the wood. “Shall we get something from the buffet?”

            Crisp sunlight streamed through the long windows.  Melinda looked down her nose through her pink reading glasses as she surveyed the pickings.  She disapproved, but – as her daughter would attest – she disapproved of everything.  She stretched out her hand for a plate.  Her hands were bony and long.  Her veins stood out blue against her papery skin.  Her head turned sharply upon finding her hands empty.  Her fingers seemed to keep reaching as she glared at the empty space. 

            “There, you, bring some plates,” Melinda called out, waiving her hand at the empty space.

            It was the same waitress.  She looked at the middle-aged woman with deer-in-the-headlights eyes and scurried off.  Melinda shook her head, muttering something about hospitality as her daughter loaded two slices of white bread into the toaster. 

            Slowly, the three wandered back to the table.  Beside them an elderly man was reading the business section of The Sunday Telegraph.  Every once in a while he would glance up at Melinda as she sat, with perfect posture, cutting into a grilled tomato. 

            “I mean, all I ask for is a smile with service.  Isn’t that how hospitality works?” Melinda laughed a cold, metallic laugh. 

            The waitress walked over to the man at the neighboring table.

            “Can I get you anything?” she asked with a smile

            “Ah, yes. If you’re not too busy dealing with your more demanding guests, I would love another pot of tea,” he replied.

            As the waitress walked away Martin looked up: “Mind your own business, would you?”

            “I’m sorry, did you have something to say to me?” the elderly man looked up from his newspaper.

            “Yes, I said mind your own business.”

            “You know this is why they say Americans are loud and rude.  I’ve lived in New York twelve years and I’m a regular here and these women work very hard.  Pay them the same respect you think they ought to pay you.”

            “Well, thank you for your opinion.”

            The man returned to his newspaper.  Liz sat, staring at her white toast and tomato juice, nervously folding and unfolding her napkin.  She tore off a corner of the bread and nibbled, trying not to make eye contact with the man at the next table.

            “Oh Elizabeth, I know we embarrass you; but we really are right here.  As I said, all I want is a smile,” said Melinda.

            Martin watched the elderly gentleman leave the restaurant as he bit into a raspberry Danish.  “I should have said we were Canadian.”

            “Oh now that would have been good!” replied Melinda.

            That same smile spread across her face, stretching her too small mouth across her too wide teeth.  Liz’s gaze returned to her toast. 

            “Are you alright Martin?”

            “Just fine, why?”

            “You have a grumpy face.  Smile.  You’re ruining my breakfast.”

January 26 - How to Change A Lamp

Watch that you don’t get the tippy Genie,

            Or if you do that you’re prepared for it,

And position it under the right Circut

            (Watch the cyc!  Don’t tip your head back too far!)

Check the bucket:

            Hot Hands, replacement lamp.

Check the feet:

            Is the bubble level right? No? Damn.

Re check everything.

Listen to the sophomore remind you not to have a party with a giraffe in the Genie

Ascend.

Fell the heat on your face as you rise

            (Heat doesn’t rise, scrub, hot things rise)

Stop, go up a little more, stop again,

            “Hey can you get the E-Stop?”

Get into place.

Find the little gold pin.

            Unplug the instrument!

            (You don’t want to electrocute yourself)

Find the little gold pin.

            Lefty loosey, righty tighty

Free the housing.

Don’t look too long at the bruised and swollen glass

            The art department will want it for something, God knows what.

Safety pins in and up. Free the lamp.

            Maybe.  Sometimes they get really jammed in there.

            Damn, that one got fucked up.

Now careful!  Open a new lamp

It’s cold. You’ve taken off your Hot Hands to improve your dexterity. The dimmer room was cold.

Don’t touch it. The lamp that is.

            It’ll blow when it heats up if you do

            And send glass falling down on some unsuspecting actor

            (Well not really, but it’ll be a pain to get out of the instrument)

Good, you’ve done that well.

            Pins in and down, housing back in the instrument, plug back into the dimmer

Does it work?

Did it blow?

Return to Earth.

January 25 - Dear Ms. Dickinson,

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons – 

That oppresses, like the Heft

Of Cathedral Tunes – 

Well I have seen your slant of light,

On a winter afternoon

But I found freedom – not oppression –

In your cathedral tune

The shadows on the field

Wrote their hymnal on the Green

As the landscape listened

Death looked upon the scene

And I saw His face –

The shadows silent fell –

As I looked into his eyes

Your cathedral’s bell did knell.

My heart - it may be damaged,

Your heavenly hurt did scar;

But I see this scar in others

And in us, your freedoms are.

So go and tell the people,

Sing it loud and clear:

There’s a certain slant of light-

That you all should hear.