A POEM - HOLIDAYS

HOLIDAYS
When I was running my little painting biz
during my first stint in college
I booked this porch job.
It was a tiny contract
and I mainly decided to do it
to help out the old geezer
who couldn’t bend his back anymore.
Well, when summer came
I sent over a couple yahoos I’d hired.
They banged the job out
and complained the whole time
about how there was too much scraping
and not enough time budgeted.
I shrugged ‘em off
and soon fired the bigger one,
this bigtime loser named Will.
His buddy who was a nice kid then quit too
and I soon forgot about the pair.
But one time maybe a month later
I was driving through
That neighborhood,
and then I was coasting by that house.
The old man and his old lady
were on the porch.
They noticed my truck
and began to wave as I approached.
I waved back and smiled this pathetic smile,
but as I got closer
and then passed them
I realized they weren’t waving to me,
they were waving for me to stop.
But I didn’t have time to stop
so I kept rolling by
and as I did I heard the old man yell,
“you’re goddamn painters leave holidays!”
It took me a moment
to figure out who’d painted the thing,
as I had maybe fifteen people working for me
and they were constantly getting
hired
or fired
or quitting of their own accord.
Then I remembered that bigtime loser Will
and I smiled and realized that
everybody in the world was just out here
trying to fuck everybody else.
And we were all doing a pretty good job of it.