Adam Kozak

On Work, or: Why You Should Listen to Me and Get to Work

“Hesiod, the poet himself, a man of many talents blessed by the Muses, once told his brother Perses, “Work the work,” (ergazeo ta erga) and never has a truer word been spoken.

Work is the lifeblood of man, that which gives one purpose in an otherwise squalid and pointless existence.

Don’t get me wrong. I stay as far away from the stuff as is humanly possible. If Hard Work and Physical Labor approached me with a winning lottery ticket for a cool $50 mil. I would run a mile. It’s not so much that I object in principle to working, or “hard work” as it’s usually put by those who subject themselves to the experience, the actual blood and sweat of work, so much that I object to it in practice. I’m a thinker, not a doer, and people like me (specimens of such estimable class and value) are few and far between. Our talents and our energy must be conserved and directed toward the idea of work, the essence, the Platonic ideal of the thing, not the action. If something needs doing, I make note of it to any and all in earshot and wait for someone to do it. Perhaps it doesn’t get done. Do I worry myself about that? No. The execution, the alleged “hard work” of a thing is not my concern. The real work has been done between my ears. There is the achievement of man, in the thinking, not the doing.

In truth, I work. I work very hard; most people just don’t notice, which, if we’re being honest, is their failure, not mine. Try as I might, the work I do just does not get the recognition that it deserves, a true crime against humanity if there ever was one.

Build a school? No thank you; but I know where one is needed. Clean up the polluted river? A fantastic idea, of which I actually thought, so off you go. I think City Hall needs new leadership, so why don’t you run for mayor? Someone better do something about that pothole on Main. Cars drive too fast down my street; why doesn’t someone do something? Clean up the park, build houses for the homeless, adopt a shelter dog, recycle, stop air pollution, grow your own food, feed the hungry, clothe the needy.

I have all these ideas and no one will execute on them.

It’s as if no one wants to work anymore.”

Excerpted from an interview with F. Rutherfords Finklehouse-Shays, heir to the Finklehouse-Shays diamond mining empire.

This “essay” or short story (or perhaps satirical monologue, as was suggested to me, would be better) was written for the monthly Symposium at the Soaring Twenties Social Club (https://soaringtwenties.substack.com/). The topic for the November issue is “Work”.

Sun and Cloud

It rained and rained so black in midst of day
Relentless life falling from heaven high,
Th’imagined battle, cloud and sun, that he,
Hyperion, might shine and see at last
Your glory in the full splendor of dawn
And you adorned in sun’s full raiment bright.
But clouds, bulwark of Zeus, do guard so jealous,
Sequester with lightning and thunder that
Which he does wrongly think belongs to him.
The sun does persevere, prevails without
A fight when clouds pass, as they must at last,
Fighting in vain against the wind’s sure tide.
And now Hyperion has his brief moment
To see you and adore you now before
The clouds return, as surely they must do.
But you can laugh at their prepost’rous game,
And laughing conquer would-be conquerors.

A Poem for You, Part 2

“Hello dear, I wrote you a poem.”
“Is this one actually for me or is it another passive-aggressive revenge composition?”
“No, Mabel, it’s actually for you.”
“Go ahead then, Gerald.”

Along the alabaster arc of joy,
Stretching beyond the mind’s membranous skeins,
The heart cavils at dull, dull persiflage.
Time’s bright shadow lengthens now.
A moment, grant just one. That is enough.

(aside) “That is enough.”
“What, dear?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Do you like it? It’s iambic pentameter, like Shakespeare.”
“Is it? I couldn’t tell. Don’t let Shakespeare know you’re comparing yourself to him.”
“That hurts, Mabel. I am trying.”
“What does it mean?”
“What does it mean? Ah, well, that’s for the reader to determine.”
“I see. So it doesn’t mean anything.”
“No, it does. Would it help to hear it again?”
“No! No, no; wouldn’t want to spoil my first impression. Just give it to me.”
“Do you like it though?”
“Oh yes, I love it. I thank God every day for your poetry. In fact it’s exactly what I was hoping you’d bring me. I need some kindling for the fire.”

The Shadow of the Sun

Come, take my hand and run with me to find
A place unknown, and hand in hand we’ll cross
Through skies so clear and bright, wide seas and deep,
Running against both time and fate to where
The mist lies deep in valleys and the high
Mount calls, where deep things wait in places
We forgot. We ride to battle, drums and horns,
Clarion call to glory, but we laugh
And dance and sing, escaping thund’rous din
To wander moonlit shores and drive our ship
Into the blazing shadow of the sun.

The Beach: A Sonnet

The rolling sea did call to me so sweet
Where crashing surf meets yielding sand, two worlds
Colliding, foes locked in combative feats,
The sea, the stronger, strikes the land all furled.

The shore, deceptive refuge from sea’s ire,
Does grant a place to view Neptune’s domain,
The deep that beckons to the soul’s great fire,
A watery grave where silence does reign.

Enter the surf and taste primaeval fear
Between two clashing giants, sea and sand.
The savage surf did roll and cast me here.
Upon the shore again I take my stand.

I left the beach then for I hate the weather.
I have sand in my shorts that chafes my nethers.

This poem was written as part of the monthly Symposium at the Soaring Twenties Social Club (https://soaringtwenties.substack.com/). The topic for the October issue is “The Beach”.

Out of the Fog (audio)

I was reminded recently, by what, I couldn’t say, of something that I knew in the past, namely that reading poetry silently in one’s head is like experiencing a song by reading sheet music and lyrics. It’s missing a crucial component. So here’s a bit of an experiment that I hope to replicate going forward with me doing my best to just read the poem based on its sense and meter while not gilding the lily with any theatrics.

Out of the fog that blankets morning cold,
A land of grass in mist enveloped whole,
A sea of cloud traversed by tree-top sails,
A figure lies so dark, disturbed yet still.
Its hooves splayed out, the deer’s slender neck bends
Unnaturally, horns touching its back.
Its lifeless eyes keep silent watch unblinking,
A canvas filled with one’s own self-censure and
Reproach as if one’s failed salvation is
Akin to striking death’s most fatal blow.

Out of the Fog

Infinite

I travel ways among the blackened stars,
Galactic deserts are as home to me,
A restless trav’ler wand’ring all unscathed
By novae. I am incandescent fire
And flying faster through the vacuum cold
I burn up nebulae to feed on plasma.
Stars shift course, fearing resolute advance.
Born in a crucible of gas and heat,
Timeless I neither end nor age nor die,
Somewhere an end in space but not in time.
What am I? You will not see me but you
Will know my presence, light and heat and flame.

Sonnet 3

She came to me in restful sleep, a dark
Crowned maiden, softly treading star-lit trails
All clothed in silver samite without mark,
And umber eyes did flash in form so pale.

My voice was choked, an arid-bedded flow.
Uncertain mind perplexed by scene inverse,
To see th’ impossible but not to know
That dreamer’s blessing is the dreamer’s curse.

Said I, “Who are you, maiden fair, and whence
Came you? Your name? For I know you, though I
remember not.” “Why ask what you can sense?”
She laughed, “Come see, for this is not good-bye.”

At her command I woke at last to see.
I found that which I sought and it was she.

The Carver

The carver’s father was a carver and
From him he learned his trade spending his youth
In careful constant study of the craft.
And when his mother died his father carved
Her likeness, delicate, precise in beech,
His last creation, for the father followed
Succumbed at last, the same cruel plague beset
His aged body. So the son then carved
His sire in solid oak to stand beside
His mother, ever watchful household guards.
Soon after he did marry and was not
Unhappy for a time. But their first child
Was born as still as night before the dawn
And so he carved another figure far
Before its time, one he had hoped not ever
To carve. The tiny babe thus joined his dear
Departed ancestors. The years did pass.
Two more had died as infants, illness sent
Them down below. A son, so hale and hardy,
Both Sleep and Death in war did seize one day.
The next their daughter; childbirth sealed her fate.
Beech, oak, ash, walnut, alder, elm, and birch.
Thus seven stood together, constant needless
Reminders of the certain toll of life
In condign payment for Death’s temp’ral loan.
The carver and his wife did know each other’s
Pain, and so well, unspoken it remained.
Each was the other’s tether, tying each
To life. The wife was stronger and endured
But in the dark of night the figures seemed
To call to him and promise peace at last.
But when she died, he carved her true to life
For forty days and night rememb’ring their
Now forty years together. He would work
Now frantic, sending shavings like fall leaves
Upon the floor, now still and cutting not
But merely looking for his wife within
The wood. The day of labor’s final blow,
Marauding soldiers, hair in mats, eyes sunk,
Did drag the carver from his hovel and
Demand due payment for his life. Said he:
“I have no coin nor wealth, nothing to give
And not one thing save for my trade
And home.” And so his house they burned in sport
And broke his hand. The carver sat there mute
As greedy flames consumed the final piece
Of house and home. There ev’ry moment sweet
And bitter. Grim but smiling he did draw
To him his mother, father, children, wife
In one final embrace, and purged the hope
Of seeing them again here or hereafter.
He carved a figure crude and bent with age
And cares and, placed upon the smold’ring pile,
He walked away into the forest deep.