THE NEW JERSEY STATE UNEMPLOYMENT OFFICE, NEPTUNE

1. Table of Equivalencies
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Over-55 white male.
21 year old Hispanic male.
21 year old Black male.
All three marry in an instant.

2. Truth in Advertising
-----------------------
Advertisement in the New York Times, 1967:
(at the time you were 23)
"It's hell to be over 40 and out of work."
Tell us again all things are relative
that there are no eternal truths, to wit:
Gray hair will get you neither hired nor laid
but it will get you fucked.
Bohica.

In this place, instructions contradict each other.
You know this is the government
so it should not surprise:
but it it is you, it is your life,
it is a Mad Scene, but you can't sing.

3. Career Possibilities
-----------------------
Perhaps you could have joined the Army.
In Iraq the the work is steady
and the Army may pay on time.

Perhaps there is something cleansing in
torture and militial murder.

Perhaps, even at age 62, they'd take you.
If they took Charles Graner they'll take you.
And middle-aged men are desperate
and the country has run out of anyone
but old guys and Sean Hannity.

4. Some Obvious Deadly Sins
---------------------------
This office is the only one I know
where I don't envy the employees.

The Latina girl bending over the desk
has the most perfect ass I've ever seen.

The hot dog man cooks for the animal shelter
on his day off, but the dogs don't mind.
I've been waiting here so long I might not either.

5. A Tasteless Blast From the Past
----------------------------------
In this place where you once believed you were
So Much Better than those around you,
(inklings to the contrary are slowly seeping through)
Wrath, Pride, and Envy still gnaw around the corners
form a menage a trois to recall a nasty Robert Crumb comic
from years ago: "Whiteman," a constipated stuffed-shirt
buffoon surrounded by five jiving black kids
whose hassling leads him to say
"You can't talk to me that way,
I'm...I'm...WHITEMAN!"

To which one of the kids says
"Shit, man, you just a niggah like
everyone else."

6. Coda (Means Tail)
--------------------
There are jokes here and no humor.
Preachiness only proves you should have gone
into the pulpit or politics, like there is
a difference. This is the world
of the Plantation and the lash,
the overseer some fat prick in a
handmade suit and Rolex watch.
If you don't believe this, what became
of the last person you know
who didn't get tenure?

KTW/Good Friday 2006

--
---------------------
Kenneth Wolman www.kenwolman.com rainermaria.typepad.com
          
        I never saw a wild thing
        sorry for itself.
        A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
        without ever having felt sorry for itself
                                     -- D. H. Lawrence