{"id":1135,"date":"2007-12-31T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-31T15:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2007-12-31T15:40:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-31T15:40:00","slug":"two-poems-by-mike-estabrook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/two-poems-by-mike-estabrook\/","title":{"rendered":"Two poems by Mike Estabrook"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of us with rats in our lofts (and possibly bats in our belfries) and facing the prospect on Wednesday of going back to the day job after the holidays, here are two timely pieces by Mike Estabrook…<\/span><\/p>\n

CHIPMUNKS<\/span>

<\/span>
Yes we have become overrun<\/span>
by chipmunks<\/span>
but I like the little guys,<\/span>
yesterday a baby,<\/span>
big as a fist, sat there<\/span>
on the lawn not scurrying away<\/span>
until I was right up on him,<\/span>
the thought of rabies flicked<\/span>
through my mind seeing as<\/span>
they are usually gone<\/span>
when you get within a mile<\/span>
but no, no rabies,<\/span>
guess he hasn't yet become accustomed<\/span>
to frightful death-dealing ways<\/span>
of us humans.<\/span>
Bob was telling me just yesterday<\/span>
how he got a squirrel out of his house<\/span>
by “plugging him in the head<\/span>
with my 22.”<\/span>
<\/p>\n


<\/span><\/span>CRAP<\/span>
<\/span>Remember that all that crap going on at work:<\/span>
the new boss, Mr. Corporate Company Man,<\/span>
who has more action lists and projects lists<\/span>
and deliverables lists<\/span>
than storms have rain clouds,<\/span>
the new reorganization up top<\/span>
So-And-So now the executive VP of blah-blah,<\/span>
Mr. Snooty BigWig now the Director<\/span>
of this and that . . .<\/span>
Fat Cat Big Cheese now running the start-up<\/span>
division in the far east . . .<\/span>
the recent explosion of meetings<\/span>
like mushrooms popping onto a dead pine tree,<\/span>
all of it, every single bit of it, every scrap of it,<\/span>
is crap, pure crap, because it really<\/span>
doesn't matter at all,<\/span>
not now or ever in the past or the future,<\/span>
one damn little hill of beans.<\/span>
<\/p>\n

<\/font>\u2022
\nMike Estabrook lives in New England and says of himself “I'm the
\nmarketing communications manager for a tiny division of a gigantic
\ncompany, and man, going into an office every day can be excruciating. I
\nshould've stayed on Northfield Avenue instead where I belong and
\nlearned to fix cars like my Daddy did.” We published a couple of his prose poems back in October.<\/span><\/font>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those of us with rats in our lofts (and possibly bats in our belfries) and facing the prospect on Wednesday of going back to the day job after the holidays, here are two timely pieces by Mike Estabrook… CHIPMUNKSYes we have become overrunby chipmunksbut I like the little guys,yesterday a baby,big as a fist, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}