Friday, November 09, 2018
The Man Who Got Weak as a Kitten
In New Economy, the Physical-Sociological Team
called in.
called in.
But the women disregarded their astute
advisories, and babied him shamelessly.
Overmuch cooing, actually.
The men were unrelentingly embarrassed.
His wife.
Said.
“Kitten-Tiger! I‘ve had it up to HERE!"
The team reminded her that you marry
for better and for worse.
“Must be fuckin shitload of betters out
there making up for poor pitiful
asshole me!”
The team issued threats against her
language.
Warming all parties except her.
“Paint me Rebel!” screamed she.
“Where went those sweet lispers
of yesteryear?” sighed Dr Bertram
Hollisly-Mehq Diserray.
“Up the fat cook’s ass!”
The Oversight Group judged the
situation out of control, and
called in the Theologians.
Who got lost.
Still.
Labels: bureaucracy, change, Group-Think, psychology, sociology, theology, vulgarity
Saturday, September 22, 2018
Situation
I have absolute open sesame at a usually forbidding bureaucracy.
Walter, the Head, and I have frequently
straightened things out.
This time we make short work of my
double-knotty problem!
“We’re done here!” announces he.
“Courier delivers new papers to you
this afternoon.”
“Courier delivers new papers to you
this afternoon.”
I tell him I’m genuinely grateful!
“Now you can do ME a favor.”
Of course, but proves a strange one!
A Lou Harker gone missing, like,
maybe permanently! The Bureau
must restore him somehow.
I’m to be him for a few extra minutes.
A young couple comes, and I assent
to what they say.
All gobbledygook and I nod...when
not issuing a genial yes!
Easy, but the ambient quite surprises!
Love flows from the couple and even
those nearby. I feel lifted.
The warmth all but overwhelming!
In the air long after the couple leaves,
so I can’t help but remark on it when
Walter comes back with coffee and
Danish for us both.
“Yeah, Lou such a peach, everybody
instantly loves him. That atmosphere
enveloped you. Not that you’re
NOT nice! As am I. But the two of us
NOT nice! As am I. But the two of us
wouldn’t make one Lou!”
Pretty great when you get love and
not studied diffidence.
I’ve had some opportunities to be Lou again and jumped at them!
And yeah I know it’s wrong, unmeasured, and I’m being
ridiculous!
But now his girlfriend, Melody, has
insinuated the picture offering to
instruct me.
We’ve been out a few times.
She is mega mega cute!
Well...okay..so...I know!
Short of it is
JUST CAN’T STOP!
Labels: ambient, bureaucracy, identity, love, sex, warmth
Monday, September 17, 2018
Ways of Getting
Things had gone well.
My documents in order.
Trencher Osgood proved
silently efficient, showing
me three views of my face.
Equally awful.
Chose the first, pop-eyed
rendition.
“Friends’ll laugh,” bit off Osgood.
But since the Merriweathers and
Henslaws moved, I had none.
I didn’t say this last, but he replied
to it anyway, “Nothing to me!”
Whereupon all the computers
in all the cubicles slammed off,
as if cued by the lady on crutches
in fluorescent Daffy Duck Pajamas
now dragging herself into our cubicle.
Hissing “You DARE come here again!”
All the computers snapped to half-power,
with Patriot Boys singing The Battle
Hymn of the Republic.
Hymn of the Republic.
In the sickly light, Osgood’s face turned
hatefully furrowed. The woman screamed “How about our little daughter? Dreaming of playing
Field Hockey for Bryn Mawr College?”
Field Hockey for Bryn Mawr College?”
“I don’t KNOW you!” screamed I back.
Mr Osgood’s face became instantly caring
in palpable affection.
in palpable affection.
“You must! To escape from here!”
“I LOVE OUR DAUGHTER!” I told
the whole department then.
Mums brought: red for Ms Daffy Duck,
yellow for me.
At any rate, seven hundred dollars
later, I was home with an honorary
Field Hockey stick, highly highly
varnished.
And my new driver’s license.
Labels: bureaucracy, bureaucratic nightmare, Driver's License, Field Hockey
Saturday, July 07, 2018
Cecelias
Mr Detz politeness personified!
So easy enough to say yes when I’m lost with thousands of others in The Bureau’s New Cloud.
As a temporary convenience, would I mind becoming Hubert Grimshaw?
Reluctant at first to say the least, but the more I research him, the more he proves just about identical to me in his likes, dislikes, quirks.
"How about the real Hubert?" I ask Detz.
“You don’t wanna know!”
Deceased? Nuthouse?...my mind skips quickly over these in the new excitement.
Speaking of which, he has a Cecelia, as do I.
Handful! As mine!
The two alone make my life triply exciting!
And wonderfully dangerous!
Of course, no one is being fooled here:
I’ll be Hubert forever.
The way things work.
And I’ll tell you, other Cecelia can
really fight!
Labels: bureaucracy, cloud, identity, relationship
Sunday, June 03, 2018
How Jack Became Jock
Personnel screw-up!
Mr Doddings begs him not to blow the whistle.
“No Harm No Foul!” Then, suddenly dies.
New guy, Dr Chalice, ever-flustered, doesn't want to hear about it. Literally runs when it’s even mentioned!
Anyway, years pass, and no one misses Jack.
No wonder. There’s only one Jock!
Who marries, has three confectionery
daughters with his Millie.
His Millie! So very petite.
They sing as Jock’s Wee Lassies.
He conducts in greenest Kilt and immense Tam O’ Shanter.
(Instructed not to powder reddest nose
in America!)
Come in second on TALENT AMIDST US!
Fix in.
Start to finish for Brenda’s Amazing Dogs.
Brenda all but naked in provoking
sharp barks.
Labels: bureaucracy, competition, Family, identity, reality TV, Show Business, talent, TV
Friday, April 06, 2018
Separate and Together
The first time Raj and Maria split,
was half-baked recriminations
and silly threats.
This time, with maturity...bitter and
wounding! With murderous wit.
Raj weakened then, being neither
Great Lover nor unmerciful needler.
When the Bureau of Reconciliation
reached him, he said yes.
He’d try again, under professional
guidance this time.
Maria, too, agreed.
The first step a month-long questionnaire which both responded to.
Dutifully. The questions becoming more
and more personal.
And tediously picayune.
Then, while their case being discussed
by a panel of social experts, the couple
encouraged to text nearly continuously!
This proved loosening, as compared
to the ground glass of their usual
quarrels.
Finally, Maria commented
Raj, huh? Serendipitous for me!
Love Arabian Nights. Know every
story!
They continued in this fairy tale
vein...Sinbad, Magic Carpets and
the rest.
SHE DIDN’T KNOW HIS NAME
WAS RAJ?
Upshot: Vaunted bureau had
found the wrong Maria!
When Raj notified them, they
denied all guilt and dropped
the case.
The couple still texting, and she
has promised to do her
Dance of the Seven Veils
when they meet next week.
Her last text: I love you Raj!
His: Perfect together in our new exotic world!
Incompetence may yet produce one
of the great love stories of our time!Labels: Arabian Nights, breakup, bureaucracy, fairy tale, relationship
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Bureaucracy Oy!
-Your Prostate Claim refused
because you're Female.
-Not last time I looked.
-Oh? Then I'll put you down as
Claims Male.
-Do that!
-However, we have a route for
immediate payment.
-Better yet!
-The Cralzer-Demsel Index of
Sexuality. You have CDI of 61.
That's male enough for payment.
-But I'll still be Female in your records?
-No action and you'll revert to Male.
-No Action is my middle name!
-We still have one piece of business, however.
You'll be using your CDI as a BC.
-Pardon?
-Bureaucratic Convenience, while your original maleness gets settled.
-I don't know...
-Got the stamp right here. BC!
-Okay, use it.
-Done!
-Wow! You are one loud stamper!
-Known for it!
Labels: bureaucracy, claim, insurance claim, medical insurance
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Late Remedy
The authorities declared the only street in town
one-way.
As a result you couldn’t get back!
Unless you negotiated a maze of dirt roads,
and tangled Indian Paths.
Which we did in good humor, often in conversations with fellow pilgrims.
When the authorities got wind of the camaraderie, they stationed police and Guardsmen to funnel us back,
silently, to the main street.
Then the joke became you had to circumnavigate the globe to return home.
A whole genre of Anti-Official scorn and humor
followed.
Got back to them, and they raised a far barrier so nobody could leave town.
Held a public meeting there.
We killed them all at it, the One-Way signs flung on the bodies.
Then celebrated. Dancing!
When the old and children left, it became Dionysian.
When Freedom finally comes, it can take that form.
Labels: authority, bureaucracy, dancing, dionysian, insane bureaucracy, one-way, orgy, perverse authority
Friday, May 06, 2016
TWE
“Discontinuation of Practice”
Came the notice via all electronic media.
But several things pending which couldn't
proceed without their approval.
We had to each chip in to hire a fixer.
He had headed up the Bureau in the past.
“They've changed everything!” he complained.
Code for they've changed nothing, but he
required more cash.
Somehow, all the proper balances got struck,
mostly due to his obeisances to former underlings.
Ending with a showy kowtow televised world-wide.
The great big thing: we didn't get into TWE, the
Trouble Without Extraction.
Where you only learn where the bodies are
buried as you’re about to join them.
Labels: bribery, bureaucracy, bureaucratic emergency, deference, Diplomacy, kowtow, obeisance, pecking order
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Strategy
Jeanette S Windom could not have
been nicer. Mine was the biggest
snafu she had ever seen, but she
dove into the huge computer bank
and came up smiling.
I just knew I would have then, clutched
close, the 14e. That form of liberating
dreams!
She was fired next day.
I went to Republican Liaison at my job.
"We found we can kill morale by axing
the truly good ones," smiled he.
I couldn't believe such a policy!
"Civil Service Protections? Not to
mention Constitutional Rights?"
"Wipe our ass with both! How we get real!"
“You invite Revolution?”
“Only because we're bloodthirsty. But shove
past the necessarily vicious politics of life.
Your Jerry is some baseball player!”
“Netty too.”
“Let's concentrate on Jerry, shall we?”
Labels: bureaucracy, Civil Service, Constitution, firing, political, Republican, sexism
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Fixer
In Conversation and Fable
-You like to make phonecalls. Straighten the whole
world by wire or cell!
-My skill. And, modestly, Art.
-Don’t make that one, Picasso! Fair warning!
He did. Eventually going to the bureau where they
had attempted to remedy his plight...and engineered,
thereby, the greatest clusterfuck in the history of government.
Of Mankind? Top hundred.
He emerged. Walked past his car to the high road.
Cops picked up there, babbling.
After a month in Bide-a-Bit:
-I’m surprised you didn’t wave your dick too.
-I lack imagination.
Labels: breakdown, bureaucracy, cell, clusterfuck, fixer, government, phone, phone skills, Picasso
Monday, January 18, 2016
MYSTERY DEATH OF WHEELCHAIR
The Federal Government outsourced most of its
work to the Dresden-Solliday Corporation, but I
didn't see any change, at least in my unfolding
experience that day.
Runaround then, runaround now.
After the fifth office, a round man, silky gray,
coiffed, manicured, DS-USA badge containing
tiny depictions of American flags.
"Are you the person looking for Bellsome Narraway?"
Said I was.
“May I ask the nature of your inquiry?”
“Personal.”
“Well this is a Dresden-Solliday US Government
Installation. It is therefore a workplace. According
to USDS regulations...!”
I told him Mr Narraway was homeless. And I
had evidence that he lived and worked there.
“That's impossible! Oh I'm so horribly horribly busy!
But...I'm authorized to make an exception. Tomorrow.
You're to stay at DSUS Hilton tonight as our guest.
It's quite lovely.”
He evidently held memories of its restaurant meals.
No complaints. And the next mid morning a very
luxurious bus appeared. The driver was strapped in
with his wheelchair and was quite jolly.
Appearing. He never spoke.
Mozart's The Abduction From the Seraglio played,
with interweaving patriotic songs.
We spend an hour negotiating the potholes of a rusty
old refinery.
I’m the only passenger, though iPads fall down at
every seat.
Mine says. Welcome to the Dresden-Solliday USA
Corporation. Please help us evaluate our service.
Only one question: Driver was a) Unfailingly
Helpful...all the other responses are ghosted out,
so I naturally check a.
When I do, the iPads, including mine, suck back
into the ceiling.
And the bus stops, the driver rolling off, an immense
submarine sandwich in his lap.
At the parking lot, and my car.
So I leave.
Unfortunately, the driver, searching for a decent
spot to eat his monster sandwich, gets lost in the lot’s
furthest reaches.
Waylaid then by a quartet of starving juveniles, who
incorporate him in their play.
All the while inhaling the ripped-apart sandwich, they
knock over the wheelchair several times, stealing its battery.
Abandon him, and chair, pre-natal in a muddy area of soda
cans, some glinting from scrub bushes.
Couldn't possibly crawl out of such terrain.
A cell left to him, but they have taken its battery also.
I become the number one suspect in MYSTERY DEATH
OF WHEELCHAIR–-the news-sites omit the victim's name,
but no one had taken mine either. The Hilton registered
me as Teddy Roosevelt, their little joke.
Law Enforcement finds me anyway, and a bureaucratic
nightmare...does not begin.
They take my statement in my kitchen, and assure me
that’s the end of it.
Though one political party later wants me to testify
anonymously of the vicious incompetence of the other.
I refuse. Not partial to the newly-favored Bag On the
Head look. Even the Ralph Lauren’s.
Labels: bureaucracy, Capitalism, government, juvenile delinquent, outsourcing, Ralph Lauren, wheelchair
Friday, October 02, 2015
Take a number!
Bureau, Blonde, Crab
“Well here I am again!” Blonde-Bubbly and seventeen and
vibrating cylindrical curls. She was sure Mr Telmark
could help her THIS time. She was exHAUSTED!
He told her he’d be taking a chance, that one of the
other offices she had visited should have hit her
document with the desired stamp.
But...she was so so charming. Even the acrid waitees
clutching their numbers smiled.
So, he stamped hugely, to her dimpled applause.
Then, same problem with a one not charming:
gruff red-faced bulldog. “You sent me on a
merry-go-round of lazy officials. Now here I
am back here, and I’ll get that damn stamp
if I...!”
Telmark couldn’t take responsibility! Not without
clearing it with a superior office. The phone
conversation had to do with DD-20.
An overarching program.
Once the bristling man paid twenty in cash, the rubber
stamp followed loudly. He was satisfied.
As was the office, DD standing for Dunkin Donuts.
To which Kristy and Dodds soon dispatched.
Labels: bureaucracy, Dunkin Donuts, gruff client, pretty woman, rubber stamp, waiting in line.bureaucracy
Thursday, October 01, 2015
Primer on American Exceptionalism
-They closed down the government again!
-Did anyone notice? But, why do we live in such
crappy times?
-Don’t blame MY party. We’re not eating fire
and shitting gold bricks for our greedy clients!
-No, you’re just laying down.
-Sheer fatigue! Anyway, you deal with the
government you got! Just placed my nephew
in a department.
-Which one?
-Not saying. They’ll try destroying that one first.
Labels: bureaucracy, cowardly opposition, greed, party, Party of Rich, political revenge, shut government
Saturday, August 01, 2015
Codes and Identity
The Five-Year Plan–-
Mandatory Re-Processing
-Do you mind awfully staying as Hap Z Cranston?
By the time we trace Bert K Ives...!
-But, that’s me! Bert! I’m B--
-Formerly, I'm hoping.
-But, why should...?
-Better PR for us in not again screwing things up,
and amazing advantages for you. Thus, we don't
mix things up with your two sets of papers. And you,
as Hap, have joined the five percent.
-And laid down prodigious bribes thereby?
-Exactly! I can show you five lines of code buried
in there which cuts your processing time two thirds.
Notice, for example, born scarsdale, lower case s.
That skips the proctologist!
-What's he looking for anyway?
-I don't know, but it's mostly darkness.
-Speaking of shit, this democracy is one huge bag
of it, no?
-The present form, yes. Billionaires like you, Hap,
have bought and sold it.
-Is he me presently?
-Unfortunately. Two full days of processing left for
him, as Bert!
-And Me? Now? As Mr Rich Bitch?
-Two HOURS.
-Then back to HIS wife?
-Well, she's busy with tennis and golf pros...
during and après.
-I won't go back there then. How much code
is written in my new papers to advantage me,
and for how long?
-Don't give it a thought. Forever.
-Does he get MY wife?
-Probably.
-She has visions.
-That'll amuse him.
-Oh well! Heaven will be fairer.
-Don't bet on it!
Labels: bribery, bureaucracy, corruption, future, identity, mixup, rich, SNAFU, switch
Thursday, July 30, 2015
The Fill-In
I breezed through the form, but what the hell!
You could put anything down!
Check Chinese and nobody cared.
Married, Single, Divorced? All three. In glee!
As always, a combination of chaos and
precision:
Since they proved crazily fussy about 14B. A large
blank you had to fill in border to border. With what?
God knows.
The question varied. Mine, this time: How far is up?
Not intended to necessarily elicit a scientific
answer, but tap your psyche in some way. I wrote
of a trip to the shore with my elderly parents.
Wrong! The woman waved her wand and it
blinked red. So...again.
No soap either with How many make anything else?
I detailing the articles in my right pocket.
The woman eventually gathered her personals
and closed up. I was still her charge, so she
led me to her crisp little apartment in the same
building.
Only a short passageway, but it took some time
because of a ranging limp that grazed both walls.
In that cozy domain, over Stouffer's Microwave Lasagne,
I first noted how terrifyinging ugly she was.
But before you say anything, I'd give King Kong a run
for his money.
She eventually produced pajamas that’d fit him!
I swam in them. And out.
England expects each man to do his duty!
I’m always okay with that. You pick the way
to show your patriotism. Still a free country.
Labels: bureaucracy, chaos and, fill in form, form, free country, government, modern society, patriotism, precision in government, sex
Monday, July 27, 2015
Filling In
Word circulated
to write in 14E with "14E"–and not a single letter from
the list of options representing concepts, choices...
or whatever.
At any rate, this worked for everyone until a person
was called in at random, and never returned to his family.
A lump sum was, and the family seemed satisfied.
But, thereafter, anyone who 14E'd originally
was marked Q in every paper or cyber file.
The Q's living on borrowed time went the rumor.
Pretty much all the Qs gathered in the Adirondancks
and armed themselves.
They decided to preemptively attack a motor vehicles
office on Staten Island.
Fourteen deaths resulted and the numerologists went bananas.
The government called for meetings.
Never held, so everything forgotten.
“We lurch from vague crisis to vague crisis,” concluded
Senator Oliver, aka Senator Expense Account.
Labels: bureaucracy, Expense Account, form, forms, government, numerology, revolution, senate
