Take the Hill of beans

It happens every day

Are the weary, dead eyes, passionless flesh and bone ready to retire?
No. It’s just a once-sharp knife dulled by slicing through cross-function tape.
A once racing mind, now limping, attached to an aging ape.
Another sardine packed on the rush-hour traffic quagmire

You don’t get my frustration. It’s all so simple for you.
Busy, busy, busy. Never mind options. You’re getting things done.
Ideas don’t matter. Completing the task is your fun.
The stop/start commute is productivity’s machine starting on cue.

Recycling conversation about reaching customers and how to grow.
Bosses with tightly bordered minds, wrapped in the box neat.
Dial code, mute, drop out, “thank you”, repeat.
Counting angels on pinpoints. A useless show.

Battle fatigue. Everyone dutifully falls in the flow.
Never mind improvement, just take the hill of counted beans.
We’ll get a different outcome if we just repeat the same thing.
No time to think about what lies below.

The problem is secondary in the corporate maze
My ambition faded with the passion I sold.
Now I work for pride and comfort, which leaves me cold.
There’s no performance standards anyway, just reviews without a raise.

I shifted focus as my energy waned. Still I don’t rest.
I learned to believe the boss’s excuses, to accept that it’s a long race.
I hope my health savings hang on to preserve a life that’s lost face.
I hope the egg doesn’t break before I reach the nest.

Afraid of offending people we really don't like. At work we all pretend.
Some want to be heroes.
Most are just zeroes.
But there’s no point disliking. They’re probably kind in the end.

The weekend distracts from the daily flogging. Reminds us how much there is to life.
We work to get paid to pay for kids, Otherwise, we’d sail to the sun.
But I am all in -- worried every day, just like anyone.
Five days makes us forget our freedom filled with strife.

We’re all trying to get through another day away from what makes us feel.
Please forgive me for my distraction and multi-tasking when you’re on air.
We have loves and losses outside that wait for us there.
Remember that. We might be less annoying and more real.

Reviews

[Final-Karma]

We all have a story. That story defines who we are and will be in this world but at some point I feel that this privilege of freedom and paths was stolen from us. This modern system, since a system is what it is, has stripped us of our individuality. We are to operate under a mission that we were never briefed for. Programmed by non existent beings to construct a will not of our own. In this system, to survive, you must be a hacker. Your poem illustrates that very ideal and brings it home to relativity for all of us. The worry and concern are shown in every stanza. Thank you for sharing your mind.

[Nathan Spark]

See ... now I lack those kinds of words! Thanks!

[Final-Karma]

You are most welcome!