a delay in vacation start ....

todays poem is another one from 1995 .

some updates on the world around here. negotiations, we sort of hear, are off again, over the company wanting to deny vacations during scheduled shut-down days/weeks at the mill, where they need all the workers they can find. (how about hiring more people?) The union says there aren't enough weeks in the year now to allow everyone the vacation time they are allowed. So the union walked away from the table. Anyway, i guess they will talk again - but no time is set just yet.

speaking of vacations, i GOT to work (as in mandatory) one of the nights on my vacation ... the contract says they can schedule you on the first two days (& nights) of a vacation, as those days are not protected, though they will try never to do that. well, they did to me, again. i think this is the 3rd time in two years i've had 2 or more days lopped off my vacation time. Oh well, such is life at the big happy papermill. but now i am off, free to lolligag around, listening to some old 60's music and trying to catch up on some much needed rest.



WHO WOULD CARE WHAT IS SAID

who would care what is said (or not)

the neighbors fought every other night in the darkness. under the veil of stars or fog.
she's a rotten bitch & he's a goddamned lying bastard.
neither are worth a pile of shit.
but by morning they smile,
each in their own Ford Escort, wave a "good morning: to the old walking man who knows nothing of the last night.
such a wonderful couple.

DC8 eating black-top
into an old dump-truck. flagger holds STOP sign in one hand, cigarette in the other. the sun curses. nearly as well as she does.
eats more dust. & more dust.
in a week they'll mend the craters with a new layer of asphalt. steet will be open in two weeks.
in a month, they'll tear it up again for another gas line.

the cop (blue uniform, badge number 1736) knocks. 6am. Sunday morning.
Yes. i know the neighbors.
tempestuous! Mark in the trunk of Diane's Escort? throat cut & she without a trace - into the mystic?
well, he was a goddmaned liar, officer. told me once he'd been to Spain & the Persiam Gulf.
Diane swore he'd never been out the damned state of Oregon.
who you gonna believe anyway?