Tuesday, September 10, 2013

THERE WAS A TIME



IMAGE MATTERS

Standing before the desk of a man I respect
he was telling me that image is everything.
Buy a couple of good suits he said
and
improve your use of vocabulary.
Doors will open to everywhere,
you can go anywhere your heart wishes to be.
See the world you want to see,
success is readily waiting at your feet
if you just clean a few things, smarten up.

So taking to heart his advice
I recalculated my use of language
started to sound like every other bit player
on the glorious corporate stage,
let all my timbre and tone be dictated,
by them above while I doused my innate rage.

I shaved my beard, cut my hair,
Yes I appeared twice as good as ugly can,
I made myself to look nice, as scarred and beat up can;
I even gladly bought products from drug store shelves.
I went out of his office, just like he said
the world opened up for me;
a vast expanse of new reality.

Oh damn if only you know how often my resume was scanned,
career paths outlined  a way laid out for me and planned.

In my new suit and shoes I went a trekking,
Finding those vaunted company ladders
everyone I came across with dead bodies and train wrecks
covering the bottom though only made me sadder.
Looking for ways to pay tributes, taxes, and my dues.
Roaming about place to place
quickening daily the pace simply to see
just what job it was that was going to make me, me.

I knew I had to leave find a way in which I could believe.

I travelled the valley floors in desert heat
and
myself up through mountain passes on I dragged ,
by the time I finished that part of my life’s journey
I found, that a good suit easily gets ragged,
leather sole shoes are slippery on a mud covered slopes
it takes pitons and small picks and ropes to abet hope.

My hair again began to grow some and then some more
my beard got longer and fuller too with each closed door
Well then, beastly though I looked,
I felt better about myself with it,
not quite so corporate and weird.

Advice from a respected mentor is a good thing to get
but there is no way to tell if the words spoken
in a moment’s time that you never forget
are really going to make the valley to mountain tops
easier to climb. Living is not a series of job hops
but a steady journey of taking and giving.

Be who you are,
stand where you stand,
let your roots allow you to grow
for from the outside another can never know
more than the you they see.
And what they see is what they see
not what you are or who you want to be.

My mentor and my friend sad to say may
believe I rejected his wisdom that day so long ago.
But truth to be told I never forgot that image matters.
Though the suit lay for decades in a heap all in tatters
and my hair much thinner is quite a bit longer
while the beard speaks for itself,
I may be many times broken but I am much stronger.

For what he taught me that day in his office standing post
a’fore his desk but I took so long to learn
was the image I have of me inside is what matters most.
Passion never is to smolder but has to hot white burn.

So today here I stand outside alone having made my way
knowing without braggadocio, boldness, or boast
that I have walked my road honestly with compassion
and that my friends is my idea of images beautiful fashion.

© M Durfee
9/10/13

19 comments:

  1. waylaid for sure....its a sales pitch to sell us on being rich and getting ahead as if that matters more than the image we have inside us...that def overcomes the other...

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    Replies
    1. The memory of that discussion simply came rushing back at me Brian. The man was not trying to do anything other than give me the advice that took him from a mechanic to a millionaire through his and his partners long efforts. He was not trying to stop me from being what I was then, but 30 years ago success was measured in different terms than dollars.

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  2. Replies
    1. I'd rather have one of those good old Catholic kisses of Peace Candace.

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  3. You and Popeye: I is who I is

    On FB yesterday someone posted a sign, 'Be yourself; everyone else is taken'

    So your travels brought you to the real deal. That's a gifted way to live. I know the craziness and injustice of too often angers and distracts you, and I hope that lessens, but I' m glad you're the real deal

    Love
    kj

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. kj, Never get the thought in your head that because i am often pissed off I am distracted. I no longer go after random destruction in anger. At or age one better know why we're pissed off or we're ready for the locked ward.

      Thanks kiddo.

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  4. the story of the human race, appearance is everything. What a sad epitaph.

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    Replies
    1. Charles, c'mon you know that is only true if you're a Kardashian!

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  5. Final paragraph
    A fine epitaph.


    Aloha

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    Replies
    1. I wrote my own epitaph decades ago sista'. The son of a bitch had a life and he lived it!

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  6. "So today here I stand outside alone having made my way
    knowing without braggadocio, boldness, or boast
    that I have walked my road honestly with compassion
    and that my friends is my idea of images beautiful fashion." -- words to live a good life by, Mark. To be secure in who we are (screw a manufactured image) is the most important lesson my father ever taught me.

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    Replies
    1. Talon you had a gentler father than I did. Mine taught me 17 was not soon enough to get out.

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  7. just what job it was that was going to make me, me. - well, I believe it's poetry...

    I so love this poem, Mark!

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  8. Replies
    1. Yeah Blooger needs to put a button on here for that, that way no one has to comment if I writes anything they hate or like.

      I still can't make that link work not direct drop or gloogle. I just had and idea though.

      Delete
  9. Mark-the most important 'image' is the one we see of ourselves. xo

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  10. Never had much of a desire to be a suit or dress up to impress. I do like to speak well and write well. I got pretty far on those two things. And a lot of luck too of knowing the right people.

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So Walking Man I was thinking...