In which I offer criticism of a major American poet.

So, my friend, Alice, posted this video on Facebook and I had to make an observation. This is by way of getting some general bitching outta the way.

I dunno, isn't she bitching because the old timers won't let her work harder? I had just turned 19. I was a new hire at Ford's Dearborn Assembly Plant, the mothership of the Ford Motor Company. I was given a pointless, but easy job on my first day. I wanted the boss to like me. I wanted the job to work out. I threw myself into it.

After about an hour an old timer, a battle hardened veteran, a grizzled old autoworker in his late twenties walked up to me smoking a cigarette.

He watched me work for a minute then said, "Kid, come 'ere a minute. Do you like work? Lemme tell you somethin' kid. The more work you show 'em you can do, the more work they'll provide yer ass. Slow down."

He meant that, if I let them, they would work me until my back was ruined. Until my knees and shoulders were grinding bone on bone. Until I lost a finger, or maybe a hand in the gears of some machine. Until the smoke and fumes had destroyed my lungs. Until my heart gave out or the cancer ate me alive. He was trying to tell me to pace myself for a life time.

I'm glad Patti ran away to become an artist but that doesn't mean she understood what was going on. I love Patti but this time she got it wrong.

Honest, my faithful anonymous reader in Cocoa Beach, I'm working on an original post here at Poetry Is For Assholes. Trouble is I'm not much for work. If you catch my drift.