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john engman

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WORK

    I wanted to be a rain salesman,
because rain makes the flowers grow,
but because of certain diversions and exhaustions,
certain limitations and refusals and runnings low,
because of chills and pressures, shaky prisms, big blows,
and apes climbing down from banana trees, and dinosaurs
weeping openly by glacial shores, and sunlight warming
the backsides of Adam and Eve in Eden ...
                                                   I am paid
to make the screen of my computer glow, radioactive
leakage bearing the song of the smart money muse:
this little bleep went to market, this little clunk has none.

    The woman who works the cubicle beside me has pretty knees
and smells of wild blossoms, but I am paid to work
my fingers up and down the keys, an almost sexy rhythm,
king of the chimpanzees picking fleas from his beloved.
I wanted to be a rain salesman , but that's a memory
I keep returning to my childhood for minor repairs:
the green sky cracking, then rain, and after,
those flowers growing faster than I can name them,
those flowers that fix me and and make me stare.

    I wanted to be a rain salesman,
carrying my satchel full of rain from door to door,
selling thunder, selling the way air feels after a downpour,
but there were no openings in the rain department,
and so they left me dying behind this desk-adding bleeps,
subtracting clunks-and I would give a bowl of wild blossoms,
some rain, and two shakes of my fist at the sky to be living.
Above my desk, lounging in a bed of brushstroke flowers,
a woman beckons from my cheap Modigliani print, and I know
by the way she gazes that she sees something beautiful
in me. She has green eyes. I am paid to ignore her.

-John Engman

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I really like this one. I hate the idea of being stuck in a cubicle for my whole life. I hate the fact that we have to do something, anything, just to get "paid," and that some people despise their jobs but can't leave.

I love the flowers. I like to run outside in the rain.

Ooh, I want to pet your kitty's straight striped head and beep his nose... /dorky

I liked >king of the chimpanzees picking fleas from his beloved< especially.

hahaha, I love cats. I have 3 at home. I play with them, when they let me. Your cat is cute, yawning. ^_^
I like, "selling thunder, selling the way air feels after a downpour."

My thoughts exactly; the words on the tip of my tongue.

Sometimes society stinks. Generally I'm happy with America, but every now and then, I wish we could go back to living in the woods.

Sometimes society stinks.

I dunno. Most everything that defines normal society is disgusting to me, right now. Sometimes its ugliness makes it beautiful, I think. Or something beautiful comes out of it. Maybe it's just the point-of-view of a bad day, though. I think the idea of wanting to escape normality to do something that romantic is beautiful. Especially when it's written from the point of view of the everyday-wasteland of real life.

& ha! You sound a bit like the transcendentalists my english teacher is orgasaming over right now. what are your thoughts on the philosophy?

Haha, are you speaking of Henry Thoreau's Walden? I read that in high school for summer reading, and loved it. Until I walked into the classroom, and my English teacher hated it (even though she made us read it), and pointed out all of his hypocrisy. He went into town all the time, apparently.

But at any rate, I love the idea of paying attention to nature. I don't think think one species (such as homo sapiens) should have reign over the entire planet. I look at the bigger picture.

Um, I might have rambled. Did that answer your question? Reading Walden, I loved it. One of my favorite scenes was the war of the ants.

Grrr.... I'm having the most difficult time getting through it. I'm not so sure I really like it that much. I suppose the idea is pure enough, but the whole philosophy seems so.... small, maybe? It seems like, in order to live that life, you have to throw your whole self into it. I'm not sure I'm that deliberate.

As for rambling, I always go off on tangents. Not sure I'm even replying to anything you said!

What is your philosophy, then?

I mean, by "paying attention to nature," I talk to people about the environment, go for walks, love animals, recycle, climb trees on a nearly daily basis on my college campus, smile at flowers, watch circling hawks in awe...I just don't let myself forget about this planet's amazing-ness. Without Earth, we wouldn't exist. We shouldn't destroy Earth. I don't have to throw away all of my material possessions or anything, but I try to be careful and not materialistic.

I don't really know, isn't that pathetic? And yet, I feel like I know what I don't like.

That sounds like it makes you happy, so I think that's beautiful. It still somehow invokes feelings that aren't quite corresponding to my life, though. Going back to basics is good, yeah, but with everything we've got at our fingertips, isn't it a bit ignorant to focus so much on such a simplistic way of life?

It's not pathetic. Sometimes you have to know what you don't like in order to narrow down your thoughts to what you do like.

with everything we've got at our fingertips, isn't it a bit ignorant to focus so much on such a simplistic way of life?
Humans have only been on this planet for a blink in the eye, in the grand scheme of Earth's history, and for less than half of that blink have we had "civilization." Maybe we've moved too far away from the simple things; the way that we live now is unnatural. Isn't it a bit ignorant to forget that fact? I'm not mocking you, I'm trying to make a point. Everything is not supposed to be at our fingertips; it's supposed to require us more effort, more muscle exertion, but overall less time. Did you know that the early hunter-gatherer societies could work a mere few hours a day, and live in plenty with leisure time to spare? Now we put in so many hours a day; all I do is work for college. People today die of heart attacks at young ages, get stressed out, become obese...we're not taking care of ourselves. Society is killing us. Did you know that the whole teenager-horrible-depressed-transition-period is a thing of Western culture? Kids in Samoa have a perfectly natural, clean transition, without all the unnecessary stress.

Just because we can do something with technology doesn't mean that we should.

So you're saying that we shouldn't make any more advances? That society, as it is, should become stagnant? If we're not trying to further our knowlege, what becomes of the point of life? How does a person grow through ignoring what is real? Things change over time; were you there during the hunter-gatherer period? How can you know that they didn't have problems then, either? I'm trying to say I think you're wrong, I just don't think that isolating oneself from reality is going to make a person any happier.

Hmm. I know that they had problems, too, died young.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't make any more advances. I agree that that would be wrong and rather dumb to say. The point of life could be argued to be exploration of new ideas, yes. But do we have to use those ideas? Should we eventually breed babies to be super-beings, just because we can?

What is reality?

Reality, I think, is the way things are. I'm sure one could break it up into different levels, or twist it into some metaphor of sorts, but simply, it's just what is.

I didn't mean to imply that I have no morals or am obsessed with science and technology, because that's not true. I guess everything comes down to what each individual believes is right or wrong. I agree, just because we have the capability to do things doesn't mean it's right; but even ignoring our present-day capabilities, mankind is constantly faced with moral challenges. Going off to live in the woods won't make you a better person than someone who develops new forms of technology. It seems like you think that anything new automatically contributes to bad in the world.

I've just realized that I'm arguing with an intellectual. And it was fun, but obviously neither of us are going to be swayed. Sincerely, I'm flattered you deemed me worthy of arguing with.

Oh dear. I'm sorry I scared you off; it was fun. I didn't think that you don't have morals or are obsessed with science--not at all! I don't think that living in the woods will make you necessarily a better person. However, trying to make gradual changes to the current society to be more environmentally-friendly, and to remember the great natural world that is out there, is important. I want to be an elementary school teacher and help instill in children a respect for the environment. I'm not bashing new technology, or those who use it; just questioning its overall practicality and naturalness. It's not necessarily "bad," as you said, right and wrong are personal, subjective ideas.

I wasn't really aware that we were necessarily arguing or trying to sway one another; simply discuss and explain. I don't think that anyone has called me an intellectual before, haha. Sorry! Please don't feel insulted! =D

I would buy rain from this man. "I am paid to ignore her" sums up the office experience.

oh man. This poem. Mary Karr wrote a poem, an elegy to a rain salesman, & I never...saw this. I really like it. (I should dig up that poem of hers & post it...)

You should! I love Mary Karr.

Amazing! Thank you!

I LOVE. This. Poem.

Absolutely amazing.

Thank you.

- Adam

This reminds me of Regina Spektor's song, "Aching to Pupate." Both are astoundingly beautiful.

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