Perennial Measure: Two Ghostly Jobs

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Two Ghostly Jobs

—for Josephine Patrick*

The restaurant’s full of people. Wow
I’m gonna enjoy this, I say to myself.
But I wish you were here to attend your
Own death anniversary party: Ghastly!
It’s full of people who really know your
Father who’s really the celebrity here,
You weren’t considered society like
Your father. He still has his factory.

You go work at that factory now you’ll
See how he’s treating us all today, now that
You’re gone, now that nobody’s running
Our cause, but why did you ever have to
Get smashed by unknown persons at your
Pop’s factory? You had this restaurant.

—*Josephine Patrick became the companion of the Filipino American fiction writer and unionist Carlos Bulosan. This poem is not about her as much as it is about what her persona in the fictional picture represents as a native daughter of neoliberal America.8

No comments:

Post a Comment

About "Perennial Measure," the first blogged poetry volume on this site:

On the seventh day in the writing of this collection, or perhaps already subconsciously during the making of that first poem, it became clear that this series, Perennial Measure (the volume), shall be about the practice of poetry and art. Having laid that assumption down, trying to follow that course, however, I saw that I was able to move later to the creation of pieces on various other themes, as if I was trying to present to my reader those various themes and issues that confront a poet in his life and everyday world, qua poet. But, so as not to veer too far away from my central theme, the series would interrupt that straying again to make me go back to pieces strictly on poetry or art. And that push and pull from the central theme went on to the end of the volume project (which targeted 56 pieces or 56 printed book pages worth). So, approach this collection thus, then, should it please you, and consider reading the last poem, "Perennial Failure," against the first one, "Perennial Measure." Otherwise, you can just approach the section or volume or book how you would rather, as maybe you should. Here is Perennial Measure, the blogged poetry book within this eponymously titled Perennial Measure blogged literary creations site.