Cold Comfort

seven years and the fissures show
and patch jobs are seen again and
again yet the fissures are eroding
further, he thinks, he wonders aloud,

bad decision after bad decision
leads to the belief that he's the
bad decision maker,

at least that's what the balance sheet
says and so does the state of his being
at that point in time,

and all the bedtime I'm sorries and
promises to make it all better aren't
doing the damnedest thing,

he's like the federal government
but with a smaller shovel,

what else is this scenario but
a waiting for the trap door to
open beneath his feet at the gallows?

even he wonders if this turmoil
will keep the supposedly holy state
together for much longer,

he wonders,

he wonders,

he wonders,

and it gets him nowhere except
to the land of cold comfort

Reviews

[TLK]

This poem could work equally as a man thinking about something personal, or as some kind of leader (taking the talk of balance sheets etc. more literally).

I like to think that it is the intrusion of such management-speak and employer-imagery on a personal life. I like to think that somebody, somewhere, finds it so difficult to look at others in ways that do not involve management that, sadly, that becomes the problem itself. Because the science of management does not work fully in the workplace - if I may speak with the authority of someone who studied organisational psychology for one module, a decade ago - so it follows that it is folly to expect it to work with the ones that you love.

[Kenneth The Poet]

Thank you for the review. I think your review is quite to the point. You nailed it on the head for the man and I didn't think about the management aspect of it. Thanks for that analysis.

[kublakhan27]

Another evocative poem with great imagery.

[Kenneth The Poet]

Thanks, Kubla.

[kublakhan27]

No problem.

[Kimberly "Melody" Carne..]

very nicely done!

[Kenneth The Poet]

Thank you, Melody!