iHop, Rainer Maria Rilke and work

Es Muss Sein

                “To work is to live without dying”

                                   -Rainer Maria Rilke

Late at work again.  Up early 

Thinking about it on the weekend

I’d rather be Madison’s Nazi Poet

Than a workaholic.  Then again,

                es muss sein

If only Rainer Maria Rilke and I

Could sit across an orange iHop table

With Jimi Hendrix and Supertramp

After the dinner rush and be off

To wonder upon the photo of the fried

Appetizer Sampler Plate, how each

Onion ring, cheese stick, chicken strip

Could not be fathomed by Empires lost

When the forested realms held spinning

Looms and hunger while God was afloat

In paintings and iHop was an egg waiting

Deep in the womb of want

The line to stand up straight is clock

The quota boss bangs his fist for more

Work, an indispensable grief.  Chop wood

Carry Chains, Backache, Pus, et cetera

Aprons swish and sweep the floor 

We are off, digging fried finger foods

Rilke has no idea I have read his poems

On a screen like a high-gloss menu

He gawks with a starved animal gaze

As the waitress serves and bends, her

Apron soiled and tight around her trunk

As old world as any woman at any time

I do not bother to explain the Rolling

Stones to Rainer or black on black crime

Or why his words about the waitress’ body

Were meant for another century

To work is to live without dying

That condition by which we know ourselves

Sages whisper in each ear, but they

Have always been unemployed