The Working Man
By Michael Domino
By Michael Domino
I've been thinking lately and my thinking
has been going something like this:
What the fuck did I do?
Why did I do it?
Will I continue to do it and,
Why have I done it?
The questions always seem to flow like this
but for the sake of this poem I'm going to
attempt to answer them in reverse order beginning
With: "Why have I done it?"
Why have I spent the majority of my adult life
working like a dog? Well, I think that I was brainwashed
into believing that this is what makes a man a man and
that I always saw men working and going to and from work
or talking about work and making money and feeling responsible
for taking care of most things in general. Whenever I go somewhere
and meet new people the question always arises eventually.
"So Mike what do you do?" I used to say proudly: "I'm
an International Trader of Plastic Raw Materials and that I do business all over
the world." Now when asked by the curious I just say "I'm a plastic scrap dealer
but mostly I like to take pictures and write poems and short stories."
I find more interesting topics in common with people when I say that I'm an artist
rather than a businessman.
Frankly I even think this is too much to tell and when asked "What do I do?"
The honest answer is simply, "I'm not really sure. I just do, I do this and I do that
and on some days I do other things that are much different than the things I did
before." This is what I do.
There is an image in my minds eye that never occurred but I can see it anyway.
I was just born, 2 hours old, and my proud Mother and Father are cuddling me
and then
they begin to shake pointer fingers at me: "Baby Michael we love you and you
have been put on this earth to grow up into a man and take on all the
responsibility that you can possibly handle, have all the answers, be the fixer
and work and work and work and buy, buy, buy things until all your days are filled
with taking care of all of your things and all the people around you." This first
moment's life vision simply never occurred. I did it to myself without any help at
all from my loving parents who to this day wish me well and peace and love.
Will I Continue to do it?
Well, I still have too much stuff just to stop doing what I'm doing, so for now I
must continue but little by little I'm getting rid of stuff in which case I'll have less
to do it with, and this is a good thing, for me but it's not easy living in America
and avoiding the accumulation of stuff without even realizing that you are doing
it. Everything points towards, Happiness =Stuff. Despite my best efforts I must
clean out my top desk drawer in my office once every week to get rid of stuff that
crawls in there, when I'm not paying attention. When the drawer is empty I feel
happier. I don't believe the commercials or adds or catalogues any more. They
are all full of shit.
Why did I do it?
That's easy. Because I believed the bull-shit for thirty years.
What the fuck did I do?
I built a life on a foundation of lifeless things instead of ideas, people, soul and
spirit believing that these things would provide all the pleasures that this human
life has to offer. I adopted the false notion that the man of the house has to be
the man of the house no matter how ill equipped and when in doubt, fake it till
you make it. Everything has been like a fast moving train barreling down the
tracks at 120 miles per hour; screaming through every stop along the way. A few
times I even wrecked the train, then repaired it and got it back doing 120 all over
again.
Michael Domino
Setauket , NY
October 5, 2007
has been going something like this:
What the fuck did I do?
Why did I do it?
Will I continue to do it and,
Why have I done it?
The questions always seem to flow like this
but for the sake of this poem I'm going to
attempt to answer them in reverse order beginning
With: "Why have I done it?"
Why have I spent the majority of my adult life
working like a dog? Well, I think that I was brainwashed
into believing that this is what makes a man a man and
that I always saw men working and going to and from work
or talking about work and making money and feeling responsible
for taking care of most things in general. Whenever I go somewhere
and meet new people the question always arises eventually.
"So Mike what do you do?" I used to say proudly: "I'm
an International Trader of Plastic Raw Materials and that I do business all over
the world." Now when asked by the curious I just say "I'm a plastic scrap dealer
but mostly I like to take pictures and write poems and short stories."
I find more interesting topics in common with people when I say that I'm an artist
rather than a businessman.
Frankly I even think this is too much to tell and when asked "What do I do?"
The honest answer is simply, "I'm not really sure. I just do, I do this and I do that
and on some days I do other things that are much different than the things I did
before." This is what I do.
There is an image in my minds eye that never occurred but I can see it anyway.
I was just born, 2 hours old, and my proud Mother and Father are cuddling me
and then
they begin to shake pointer fingers at me: "Baby Michael we love you and you
have been put on this earth to grow up into a man and take on all the
responsibility that you can possibly handle, have all the answers, be the fixer
and work and work and work and buy, buy, buy things until all your days are filled
with taking care of all of your things and all the people around you." This first
moment's life vision simply never occurred. I did it to myself without any help at
all from my loving parents who to this day wish me well and peace and love.
Will I Continue to do it?
Well, I still have too much stuff just to stop doing what I'm doing, so for now I
must continue but little by little I'm getting rid of stuff in which case I'll have less
to do it with, and this is a good thing, for me but it's not easy living in America
and avoiding the accumulation of stuff without even realizing that you are doing
it. Everything points towards, Happiness =Stuff. Despite my best efforts I must
clean out my top desk drawer in my office once every week to get rid of stuff that
crawls in there, when I'm not paying attention. When the drawer is empty I feel
happier. I don't believe the commercials or adds or catalogues any more. They
are all full of shit.
Why did I do it?
That's easy. Because I believed the bull-shit for thirty years.
What the fuck did I do?
I built a life on a foundation of lifeless things instead of ideas, people, soul and
spirit believing that these things would provide all the pleasures that this human
life has to offer. I adopted the false notion that the man of the house has to be
the man of the house no matter how ill equipped and when in doubt, fake it till
you make it. Everything has been like a fast moving train barreling down the
tracks at 120 miles per hour; screaming through every stop along the way. A few
times I even wrecked the train, then repaired it and got it back doing 120 all over
again.
Michael Domino
Setauket , NY
October 5, 2007
© 2007 by Michael Domino
