Comment by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 12, 2009 at 11:10am

All my life I am saying
“What’s my job?!” and
taking whatever I hear about
as maybe the Answer.

My job is being crazy,
having a headful
of ideas that have
driven everyone insane
and making antibodies.

My job is having no job
to put before our
job with The Big J.

Every time I think
I have an answer to the
American Question:
“What do you do?”
it turns out sooner or later I’m
laid off from every Identity.

Some day, people say, the answer
will be “I’m dying!”

Meanwhile I'm a flower
sneezing in the Spring air.

Forrest Curo
May 5, 2003
---
Anyway, while poetry gives the essentials in some sense... it doesn't necessarily do the job for conveying specifics, which might(?) matter. (Something really upsetting has sometimes resulted in one bad poem... and then another poem, much clearer, about it... and a day later, a completely different poem about the same thing.)

I gather you were/will-be out 'standing' for the recognition of some human truth vs ... well, some manifestation of the Public Lie, the sort of thing I was talking about here:

Dear Civilization

I'm running a fever like the Earth
to cure the sickness of your medicines

You splash filth in my eyes
and think I do not see

My lungs clog with your fires
and my mouth with your murders,
my throat with honest vomit.

I refuse your treatments; my heart
drifts down the river strewing daisies
and singing.

(Forrest Curo, Feb 2007)

Personal truth has a way of being universal, and "universal truth", "just personal."

Hast read Randall Jarrell The Bat Poet? (This is a "kid's book", but I have a feeling you too would find something there...)

Comment by Rosemary Rimmer-Clay on 7th mo. 12, 2009 at 11:25am

Hi Forrest,
the gist of this is that it was decided that I was 'too disabled' to be a social worker.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 12, 2009 at 5:38pm

I've met some good people doing social worker gigs, working harder than anyone should have to and being paid far less than they were worth. But probably one can see a little clearer on this side of the desk.

Mainly, I think the powers-that-be have lots of people climbing over one another for a chance to do Right Livelihood in some humanitarian way. & for those who win, it too often turns out to mean working within a harsh and stingy system that practically forces poor people to lie in order to receive any aid whatsoever.

Comment by Rosemary Rimmer-Clay on 7th mo. 15, 2009 at 7:02pm

Dear Heather,
Thanks! Much appreciated. I love synchronicity!

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