REAL OCCUPATIONAL TALENT

i have
always
had
a talent
to get myself
either fired
or
in permanent
exile from
corporate jobs.

my best
quick jab
at getting
myself in
the shit bucket
was with
my
last job
and
a boss named ed.

he rehired me
years after
he had 'downsized'
me like a
fast food order
at a drive up stand.

it all started
with a talk
on a business trip
towards phoenix
on the tarmac
about the upcoming
presidential elections.

he asked me what
the country would
remember as george bush's
legacy if he was
to be re-elected.

my response was this,
'HE AND THE ELECTION WILL
BE REMEMBERED AS THE MOST
BRILLIANTLY DECEPTIVE
PLOY TO FOOL THE AMERICAN
PUBLIC INTO BELIEVING
ONE OF THE MOST ROTTEN
PRESIDENTS THAT UNFORTUNATELY
STOLE THE 2000 ELECTION
AND CONTINUTED HIS ROMP
TO RUIN OUR COUNTRY.'

at this,
he gave his
corporate smirk
with his splotchy full beard
and leaned back in his chair.

the transformation had
taken place
and his vapid look into
my eyes was far off
and gone.

he never talked
what political affiliation
he was,
but i knew that this
would root him out
of his hole of
corporate ambiguity
and help him make
a tough decision.

it was that day
that his pal was
verbally trashed and
he tossed me
into that bucket
as a long goner.

he proceeded to
humiliate me
over and over
again after that
trip
and it took months
for me
to put the
two and two
together.

and now that i
have counted past four
and on up towards
the thousands,
i know that
my comment in
that thick cabin air
may have been my
best business
decision
ever.

SACK OF TRAPS

when i think
i'm in the clear
and i'm just going
to dawdle through
a handful of days
without any
tragedy,
nasty self-reflections,
parenting traps
and the like,
i start seeing
the signs appearing
in my rear view mirror.

first,
there is some poor hipster
in a camry with one headlight
blaring into
my mirror.

then,
another car with one headlight
appears in the side window.

several others now
flash like
torches in my
rear view.

a big rig in comes
in the opposite lane
before me with one
Cyclops headlight.

and i get a bit
of the sweat in my pits,
blinking hard,
wiping my brow,
i look up into the mirror
for more one headlighters
and it's gone
as the rig finally swishes by.

all headlights
have turned to two
around me.

in my moment of
relief,
the phone in my pocket
begins to ring
as a shooting star
in the sky is really
a descending fire pit of
a plane tumbling towards
earth.

at this,
i jam on the
gas pedal,
hear my alarm wake me
and
rise to see what kind
of
headlights are going to
hit my
under dilated
eye balls
of morning.

Joefiles 112 Is Out ..

I have posted a new volume of poems called: 'Joefiles 112 - Brief Definitions of Moments' (click here to view) and I posted a poem from this new volume below .. cheers ..

my dad and the outer world

as much as i avoid it,
i'm turning more
and more into my
old man as i grow old.

like him,
i sincerely believe that most
people that waddle about
on this planet are truly selfish beings
that resist evolution and intelligence
for the path of easy resistance.

even friends get rooted
out for the way that they really
are and when the ugliness gets exposed,
you begin avoiding public spots
and anywhere that there may be
strangers abound.

this morning,
i had to leave a restaurant to get
some wet wipes for my son's sugar disaster
at the breakfast table
and on the way out
there was a massive man holding the door
open for a long line of people walking in and out.
as folks streamed by,
he kept saying:
'YOU'RE WELCOME,
SURE NO SWEAT,
COME AGAIN.'

all of this was in some nasty tone because
not everyone was thanking him for
his tireless effort to avoid being nice.

and as i said,
'thanks' to his vapid face,
i descended into the raining parking lot
and really wanted to turn right around and say:
'LOOK HERE BOZO THE BIG HUNGRY BOY,
TAKE YOUR UNHEALTHY, FAT HAND
OFF THAT DOOR AND WADDLE UP TO
THE PODIUM TO GET YOUR NAME ON
THE BIG LIST TO EAT A MASSIVE
BREAKFAST YOUR HEART IS GOING
TO AGAIN LOATHE YOU FOR
AND DO EVERYONE THAT HAS
UNFORTUNATELY HAD TO BE SUBJECTED
TO YOUR EXISTENCE A FAVOR
AND APOLOGE FOR MAKING
THE CHOICE TO HOLD THE DOOR FOR US
AND THEN VERBALLY PISS INTO OUR
EARS BECUASE YOU WEREN'T VALIDATE
FOR SOMETHING NONE OF US FUCKERS
ASKED YOU TO DO.'

instead,
i put my wife and son ahead of
that fleeting desire to
dip further into my father's psyche
and just get the wet naps
to wash way all the thick stickiness
that inevitably slips through
no matter how hard you try to be
clean and untainted.

Joefiles 111 Posted

A new PDF volume is ready for consumption .. it's called: Harlequin Heart Chambers In Every Thought I Eventually Forgot - click here to read - a sample below:

how many thoughts a day do you think?
seriously think about it ..
can you even begin to
put your finger on a
single number
that would narrow down
how much you really think.
the criteria is simple.
just pinpoint how many
things may have gone through
your brain.
whether you did
anything about the thought or
it was just something that
gave your synapses a reason
to flow,
let's find a number.
is it a thousand.
a million.
maybe a billion.
maybe so many that
this question
is illogical and painful.
maybe so little that you
cannot believe
you have made it this
far
through this oratory of
poetic poem rambling.
or maybe there is
no reason to count
the number of thoughts
going on because
quality is much
more key than quantity
as
i come down to this point of
telling
you
at 2:27 p.m. on this saturday
afternoon,
i am bearing down on
my 4,579th thought.

difference between men and women

i get to know my wife
in our shared relationship
the best when we
get a bit hopped up on
some drink
and start reading
the news headlines online.

last night,
i pointed at a headline that said:
'WOMEN WORRY MORE THAN MEN, STUDY SAYS'

while my wife opened a story that said:
'BRAIN EATING AMOEBA KILLS SIXTH PERSON IN A WEEK'

and it's in these small moments of life
when we choose what aspects of life
we want to explore more
that i realize why i love
her and she ultimately
loves me
in all our
worry over alien amoebas
floating about this dangerous
world of ours.