Sunday, July 29, 2012

Two Poems by Joe Massingham

Pyramid Selling

Pyramid
selling has
nothing to do
with pyramids. It doesn’t
involve a pyramid and the
‘team’ shape is more like a
pagoda or a spire than a pyramid.
The point of the exercise is to enrol
as many sales people as possible, each bringing in
a small sum of money, most of which goes into
the pockets of those who set up the pyramid. It is
a ‘recruit and grow rich’ con, in which the originators are winners,
whilst everyone else is left digging the sand, wondering where their money’s gone.





Tom Price

Skeletal arm stretched out towards tomorrow, fist closed but sharp knuckles show.
The arm
lowers
from
the
shoulder,
its nails scrabble in the ground like a wanderer seeking water, grasping rusty dust, then
lifts,
swings, releases
it into
waiting
Magog’s giant dinky trucks.
And so from day to day the dust flows out
leaving scarred flesh to darken further
in the burning sun, waiting for the day
the ore is gone and brooding silence
regains its grip for another million years
or more.
Tom price is an outback iron ore mine in Western australia .




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