Poetry Post:"After working sixty hours again for what reason," By Bob Hicok

After working sixty hours again for what reason

By: Bob Hicock

The best job I had was moving a stone

from one side of the road to the other.

This required a permit which required

a bribe. The bribe took all my salary.

Yet because I hadn’t finished the job

I had no salary, and to pay the bribe

I took a job moving the stone

the other way. Because the official

wanted his bribe, he gave me a permit

for the second job. When I pointed out

that the work would be best completed

if I did nothing, he complimented   

my brain and wrote a letter

to my employer suggesting promotion

on stationery bearing the wings

of a raptor spread in flight

over a mountain smaller than the bird.

My boss, fearing my intelligence,

paid me to sleep on the sofa

and take lunch with the official

who required a bribe to keep anything

from being done. When I told my parents,

they wrote my brother to come home

from university to be slapped

on the back of the head. Dutifully,

he arrived and bowed to receive

his instruction, at which point

sense entered his body and he asked

what I could do by way of a job.

I pointed out there were stones

everywhere trying not to move,

all it took was a little gumption

to be the man who didn’t move them.

It was harder to explain the intricacies

of not obtaining a permit to not

do this. Just yesterday he got up

at dawn and shaved, as if the lack

of hair on his face has anything

to do with the appearance of food

on an empty table.

I like this poem because it is very interesting, shows the corruption of society, and shows how it is hard to be a worker in a business man's world. This poem shows the corruptness of officials and their fear of the workers being smart or thinking too much. This poem made me feel the sense of unfairness that the worker felt when this happened to him, and how I would feel if this happened to me. I like this poem because it is a over exaggerated and more simple view of our society's working class and their difficulties.

"The bribe took all my salary." This sentence makes me think of the rich official who takes bribes so the normal people can work, and how unfair and convoluted that is. If this sentence were true there would be no point to the normal people working, they would just be working for nothing.
"I took a job moving the stone the other way. Because the official wanted his bribe, he gave me a permit for the second job." This line also makes me think of the corruption of society and the convoluted way that society functions. I like this line because it shows that the officials are not very bright, and just want more money; also, how the worker gets mistreated and treated like they are dumb.
"When I pointed out that the work would be best completed if I did nothing, he complimented my brain and wrote a letter to my employer suggesting promotion on stationery bearing the wings of a raptor spread in flight over a mountain smaller than the bird." This line makes me think that the regular, uneducated workers are smarter than the people that are in control of them. This line also shows how you should work smarter, not harder, but in the end, the employer is afraid of his cleverness.