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That girl was funny! The treasure of America, indeed. Fifteen years old? In the US they'd call that statutory rape. I would imagine it was quite a jump from the convent to the factory. I AM glad it worked for you. It gives me something of a melancholy feeling of hope that didn't go quite way I'd hoped. On Oct 27, 2012, at 9:07 PM, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > The poem was very enjoyable, if that's the terminology, and brought back > some lustful memories of my own. I hitched across the nation at 18 and > worked in Sydney factories. My god, the girls were rough and tough - it was > a shock to me from the convent girls who were my sisters and their friends! > I've been involved up and down the social ladder since - but my favourite > still remains the 15 year old US girl who, as she dropped her panties in a > cheap hotel in Perth, declared: 'Now you see the treasure of America!' It > was a very Henry Miller moment that will last until my last. > > More poems, Kenneth. I always think you sell yourself short as a poet. > > Andrew > > On 28 October 2012 10:58, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> I don't doubt that Laura was quite real, Ken, as was Jenna. There is >> something so noir about remembered females 'in harness' so to speak. How >> aware they were of their power to enrapture we will never know. Anyway you >> collected more than you imagined from the agency it seems. Maybe you are on >> to something with the memorability of blue collar compadres. I recall >> supermarket cashiers and packers, apartment store fellow workers, even >> clients as a failed gardener, vividly, where office people have faded. >> >> On 28/10/2012, at 12:21 AM, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> >> wrote: >> >>> Not that it matters, but Laura was quite real. Even to the name. A bunch >> of guys, married, single, teens, old guys all had one thought. I can only >> imagine, 52 years down the road, what's become of her. Well, I had several >> blue collar jobs over my life--the collection agency, to an IBM factory >> while I was in graduate school, newspaper delivery manager, supermarket >> deli clerking, telephone company phone support. Except for my time in >> investing bank back offices in the '90s, the blue collar work was more >> memorable than most of the college jobs--better people, a true sense of >> teamwork. Academe had a Screw You attitude I never found in blue collar. >>> >>> Ken >>> >>> On Oct 26, 2012, at 11:20 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> >> wrote: >>> >>>> It's not exactly relevant, Kenneth but it does stir up memories of >> taking a blue collar job to augment an a burgeoning white collar existence. >> In my case, it was a plastic factory in Hawthorn for six weeks, earning >> money before the next year at uni. My Laura the bookkeeper was >> Greek-Australian smock-wearing Jenna, writing with black crayon on >> cardboard boxes full of stacked toilet seat lids 'Six only, black'. >>>> >>>> Bill >>>> >>>> On 27/10/2012, at 3:51 AM, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> >> wrote: >>>> >>>>> It's an old poem. Still strikes me. If it's relevant, that's scary. >>>>> >>>>> ALLEGHENY REALTY CORP. >>>>> >>>>> A collection man had shown me a door, >>>>> right by a dingy fileroom on the 3rd floor >>>>> Allegheny Realty Corp. it said, in black stencil. >>>>> Behind the door was a broom closet. >>>>> It was some slumlord's rent-check mail-drop: >>>>> a place he could go without fear of getting shot >>>>> by some tenant-in-arrears. >>>>> >>>>> Downstairs, on Two, we worked the tenants who owed our client: >>>>> a Su Credito Es Bueno Aqui jewelry store on the street floor >>>>> that gave Easy Terms, sold the Norteamericano White Man's Dream >>>>> to cleaning girls from Bayamon, Black countermen, >>>>> day-laborers without Union books: >>>>> the Olympic TV, sapphire ring, Gruen watch, or set of silverplate. >>>>> We ogled Laura, the hourglass body Puerto Riquena bookkeeper, >>>>> said she was worth a sterling silver diaphragm, >>>>> and that we'd fight to install it ourselves. >>>>> >>>>> Divorced guys and a high-school kid: me. >>>>> I knew where I had come from: an upstairs neighbor >>>>> fixed an off-the-books summer job for a kid >>>>> with a future in English Lit'ra'cha. >>>>> But I never dreamed what fate had brought these >>>>> wrinkled collars and dollar ties to this place. >>>>> I wondered only why these middle-aged men looked at me with envy >>>>> or anger, snarled "Kid, why the fuck are you here?" >>>>> as they hung up from a minimum wage debtor >>>>> who'd told them to burn in hell for the hundredth time that week. >>>>> >>>>> They always fell behind, our clients, >>>>> so we garnished them because that's what the job was: >>>>> called the Brooklyn Civil Court and kept a magistrate hopping: >>>>> The buff cards of broken dreams were piled floor to ceiling, >>>>> scattered on desktops, wedged under phone books. >>>>> We worked the horn to work out terms: but got false addresses, >>>>> disconnected phones, crazed accented voices telling us to >>>>> make much too good friends with our mothers, >>>>> or to put our fates in the hands of the gods >>>>> as those we garnished had put theirs. >>>>> >>>>> At noon I'd cross the street, sit in the old Pennsylvania Station, >>>>> marked by '61 for the wrecker's ball, >>>>> look up at my glass ceiling, >>>>> and thank God that my ticket was punched, >>>>> that I would go to college in the fall, >>>>> forget this place, forget the vengeful phone calls, >>>>> forget the cursing manager who struck out last night >>>>> and took it out on a widow, >>>>> forget my sticky virgin night-fantasies of Laura the bookkeeper, >>>>> and inhabit a world of high art, of poetry >>>>> that would soar into an Avalon of misty hills and kings. >>> >> > > > > -- > Andrew > http://hispirits.blogspot.com/ > 'Undercover of Lightness' > http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html > 'Shikibu Shuffle' > http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html