Wednesday, November 4, 2015

KNOW YOUR PLACE



A JOB FOR ALL
The only star in the sky
sits atop a tower miles distant,
the only light comes from a pole
blocked by shadows of leaves,
the only noise in the dark of night
is the yap of a small cold dog, wanting in.

Mostly though, for now,
darkness and silence rule;
the slum is eerily absent
of our normal noisy quality.
It is a peaceful moment in the hectic day soon to arrive;
dawn will wake them searching for economic involvement,
a way to become consumers and sellers joining the prosperous elite.

Pot shops, liquor stores, heroin dealers, prostitutes, robbers, con artists
will be pulling the chain on their red, green and and blue neon OPEN signs
and the hazy mid-morning denizens will be out with their lying signs
looking for any change to be found, (no not that kind of change)
wherever it may lay waiting to put lines on someone’s table
or refill and empty, glass, needle or penis of the goods for sale.

I do not condemn this life of leisure
that comes so easily to so very many.
There is no use in condemning or condoning it.
My job is simply to pay for it.

© M Durfee
11.4.2015

13 comments:

  1. ... the truly lost will not ask 4 ur money, meowpappa ... cuz they live and die alone ... Love, cat.

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    1. Meowmomma--the truly lost need not ask, to them I just give. Them I speak of here are not lost as they truly know how to get every desire fulfilled.

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  2. The search goes on. But few know what they are looking for.

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    1. I think I addressed your comment in the next piece above Charles but I know what it is I am looking for.

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  3. I think I'd like to remind, like you, an observer... Love you x

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    Replies
    1. Love you too shadow--an observer and a poet are two powerful combinations. Be Well my friend.

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  4. we opt
    to whom we pay
    the price

    Or is it -a piece-?

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    1. Magyar--taxes are no option. The only option which I consciously choose to not participate in is staying drunk or high. Piece, yes it is an expanding piece of my earned pie that gets paid.

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  5. I like the ending commentary: My job is simply to pay for it.

    Food for thought Mark ~

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    1. Grace in the old Detroit, the majority of the 140 sq miles where there is no redevelopment going on, only about 40% of the property taxes get paid in full, the unemployment rate is about 50% and those receiving some form of government poverty aid reaches about 65%. You can have four generations of a family living in the same house and all four generations can get a check and food stamps (often sold for cash). Of course all the benefits are tax free and in MI if they bother to file tax form they can actually get money from the treasury in the form of a child care credit. So yes I and those like me who actually pay income and property taxes do fund the life of leisure.

      I have neighbors who were paid to get trained in some kind of work who three days into a job hurt themselves and got on workman's comp and others who after 13 weeks got themselves fired so they can collect unemployment for 20 weeks. If you ever need to learn how to play the system and win--move to a slum and watch.

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  6. Wow, I wasn't ready for that ending... It is sad to think of the slums and the economic commerce that does take place and how even there, only a few make it by ruining others

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    1. It is the honest appraisal of what i see ongoing Jeff, since the big meltdown cleared out just about everyone with a mortgage. Then the banks walked away abandoning the properties and taxes allowing them to revert to the city who then sold bulk lots to slum lord "property management" companies. Companies that just sucked every penny they could from a house, never paid taxes on it and let it revert back to the city where they repurchased it once the tax liens were cleared. NE Detroit is the hub for heroin, hookers, guns etc for all of the Northern burbs as well as supplying the local market.

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  7. Mark-it's such a sad state of affairs. What's ever gonna change it?

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So Walking Man I was thinking...