“What do you know about our company?”
I know the groan the factory makes
when it warms up, but not what makes it.
I’ve known its percussion for fifteen years,
but never seen inside it.
I know that it makes things it doesn’t need:
when I was 7 we found thousands of metal discs
in the swamp behind it, the silt turned to mirror
and I believed everything and kept a shoe box full.
I know that you keep the beat of the town
on your wrist, that the men all wear blue,
leave like an estuary on a Friday
and that I welcome some of them.
I know that you have a cordoned off area -
6ft fences, barbed wire and that my brothers
left me in there once when the man came
and I learnt shame and consequence.
“Not very much.” I said, then “Sorry.”
Comments
Ewan | April 17, 2008 - 09:52
An unusual setting, you smuggle in details about a town, family even yourself.
'I learnt shame and consequence' Lovely.
I liked this.
Doeslittle | April 17, 2008 - 11:50
I think this is excellent too. Very evocative and great imagery - metal discs turning the swamp into a mirror and the men in blue leaving like an estuary, for example. Very good.
Ewan | April 17, 2008 - 11:55
Can't take resposibility for 'smuggling details' someone used it for a comment on something of mine, and it fits very well for what you have done here.
HaiAnh | April 17, 2008 - 12:10
thank you Ewan. I like the idea of me smuggling the details in. x
HaiAnh | April 17, 2008 - 12:16
Thank you Doeslittle.
Ewan, I may start using the phrase 'smuggling details' when appropriate too. It may be spread across ABC Tales by the end of the month.
x
luigi_pagano | April 20, 2008 - 12:02
The opening line: “What do you know about our company?” evoked memories of my working days when candidates for a job were asked that very question.
The absurdity of it was that although they seemed to know a lot about the organisation it was knowledge
superficially acquired by reading financial newspapers.
I very much like your poem and the inference that sometimes it is convenient to hide the fact that we know the unpalatable truth as summed up by the last line: “Not very much.” I said, then “Sorry.”