He's cleaning out his desk.
White collar, jacket, and tie were always de rigueur.
But he dared to remove his jacket, unbutton a button,
and worst of all loosen his tie, which then swung freely—
freely swinging tie, a dangling end
amid machinery geared to perpetuate perfect symmetry.
This half-way Harry ventured cool air on his neck
and found himself choking.
What he needed was not to loosen his tie
but to completely remove it.
But that was too far for him to go,
and in this place—far, he certainly wasn’t going.
The clockwork gears of management caught his free swinging tie,
while chewing up all loose ends,
and steel teeth punctured his helpless hide
as he was processed out the door.
I could pick my nose or masticate
and let crumbs fall from my mouth,
and disgust no one.
I could even curse God but only He would hear me.
On the floor are strewn my crumpled writings
of deviant manifestos, death-threat letters never sent, and one hell of a hot porno story,
that no one could discover unless they cleaned my floor.
But now a wire connects my computer to the wall—and beyond.
I often forget it’s here because it’s buried under my pile of repented words.
But one click of the send key and there is no calling back.
My rantings become silicon missives
bouncing around the infinite and forever network.
How many computers are storing my writings
under the folder heading "Degenerate Subversives."
Out there someone is drawing up a list of names.
My home is a false sanctuary,
for the steel front door would be balsa wood to the future thought police,
or the thought police that exist now in secret.
I must slap my hands before typing on the keyboard.
I must offend no one. I must break no laws.
Above all,
I must spellcheck all my misbegotten words.
I’m armed with a straw between my finger and thumb.
I twirl it around, fidgeting like a cop with a nightstick.
I’ve acquired patience. I wait. I endure.
A sand dune endures for thousands of years,
while it’s passively blown by desert winds.
It’s pushed grain by grain for miles,
but remains the same sand dune.
And I also am pushed, and I also am swept away
and seem to offer no resistance.
But I have a single straw between my fingers.
It’s my armament.
If I spin it, I create the weakest of whirlwinds,
but one that’s strong enough if I wait, if I endure.
All that’s needed the right dromedary.
Anyone will do if it’s struggling on a dune,
not yet at the top but far enough
so that its eyes see almost beyond that dune,
and its feet totter but don’t yet buckle
under a load of straws pressing hard on its hump,
with hope alone sustaining it for the last few steps.
I will add my singular addition and hear its spine crack
and then down comes the mountain with the mountaineer,
for the grains beneath its hooves will have long been primed for an avalanche.
My eyes are keen for this proper camel,
my feet firmly planted on restless sand
and my patient fingers armed with that single straw.
Richard Fein has published in numerous print and on-line journals, including Snakeskin, The Freezone Quarterly, Ygdrasil, The Mississippi Review, Anthology, Blue Unicorn, Oregon East, Kansas Quarterly, Small Pond, and Sulphur River.