Well, it's been an interesting week.
One - i have been officially certified as a shipper this past week. while i am technically still part of the paper machine, i do not work on the paper machine unless there is a break-down or scheduled maintenance and shipping is not operating. And that means i get shipping rate (which is .75 more than i was getting on the paper machine as a 5th hand) - which is cool, since i am on vacation this week.
well, that's the good news stuff ... now onto the reality grim stuff ....
two - the IP gods decided the economy sucks enough to not only close one more paper machine (in Virginia), but to close almost all their paper machines for 8 days starting next week. Another round of 8 day closures in Dec, and most likely again February. But unlike Weyco, when they stopped machines from operating due to the economy, they did repairs on the machines, education and so the workers never got laid off. Nope, IP is hurting so bad for cash, they are laying every hourly employee (with the exception of 5 needed to operate the boiler and keep it from exploding) for 8 days, and so i not only get a vacation, i get a lay off on top of it .... trying to be a believer in the goodness and deep insight that great companies hold and this is all just their way of making certain familiar are together for the holidays - (NOT) - i get an uneasy feeling that this could be the beginning of the end of the IP colonization (or is it just expansion) of the Kraft Liner world. let's hope i am direly wrong in that feeling ...
onto the poetry -
6:93 is the source date of today’s poem ...
THE COUGHING WIND
the coughing wind i hold in my pocket offers no wisdom
but i tell it secrets
we share with the grotesque.
stumble over concrete mountains in the insatiable pursuit
of a happiness that has ceased to exist.
the coughing wind i hold in my pocket knows there is no freedom
only boundaries
we stretch ever so carefully.
erect palaces of sand
upon concrete being dismantled a molecule at a time.
the coughing wind & i, like an apparition in the fog,
dance in the haze
almost real enough to believe.
