As a freelancer I understand that there will be quiet days – there will be occasional periods of not billing – on those days I will work at finding work/ It is a simple & honest agreement set by old rules of supply & demand/ But micro economic rules no longer apply/ An inexplicable macro economic factor is at work/ Such is its nature that I have no billable skills – or ability – to work my way out of these current difficulties/ I am 56 years old – living alone – ‘working’ with Parkinson’s Disease/ I have no pension or future assurance after a failed marriage [dumped on]/ I claim no benefits – because any savings I have are in cash/ This was to make my home future-proof for my illness – but such [carefully] managed provisions are now my only income/ I do not benefit from any local grants because I do not pay business rates/ I get minimal furlough because I pay myself dividends/ My income is recognised by lenders who push mortgages on me – but not by our state to whom I pay Corporation Tax – VAT – & personal tax – on time & without qualms/ People wonder why I’m not smiling
Tag: freelance
Salt
It is possible to pause & think too much –
that much I know – having considered it
too many times / My craft is assembling
piles of undertakings & to inspect them /
Do you find your mind in such bunkers of
indifference? If so join me in my refuge –
below one last high tide / Hide your face
as our space fills with brine & our escape
is no longer probable / Swallow & depart
through that other passage – we can hide!
Also on Medium
Night is when my best is said
Night is when
my best is said –
quietly – to no one
My orgy of clients
has rolled from my hands
There were too many to love
My light-fingered art
is now copied out
multiple times
by bent-to silent monks
re-daubed
by Christ’s forgers
in long-dried blood
and pushed into gilt frames
To be sold as seen
Sleep Walking
All simple pleasures of sleep
have now been reduced over
these past three days by work
and their changes to that work
as all my efforts are then undone
to be redone before their deadline
is met in that dirt of freelancing
No paid sick leave for us workers
of late hours and others’ foibles
Our Slack Dog Sleeps
Our slack dog sleeps – again –
under backlit performing particles –
those flecks – peeled and rubbed –
bare floating remnants of us
in ramped tilts of warming beams –
up there – fine speckles cavort against
our sureness of earth’s old ways –
under ageing theories of gravity –
That free carnival of melancholia
almost pulls me down alongside
her – laid out on our made-up bed –
matching breath-for-breath –
to wonder under our lost stars –
This is my routine – my vie with time –
now – on common weekdays
after the exodus of kids – to try
to find flow from my inertia –
drugged by my hate of
my paid-by-the-hour ego-building
for lank corporate schemers –
those dullard committees
of amateur designers
desiring temporary cathedrals
built in the air out of dust –
by me – wearing the same jeans
for three weeks – no one sees
me bent to my desk with malaise’s
dirty weight of false deadlines –
No one sees me dipping my eye
to find brief relief in my word chapels –
small wonders – crafted from
their commissioned remnants
My Designs
I am abraded by a faux light
for my immediate set of tasks –
I sit at my cluttered desk
before that eye-bleach of pixels
framed on a twistable mount –
that rarely wrestled wrist –
I slump before it – weighted by to-dos –
by deadlines for stage designs –
my fanciful constructs
in rented spaces for the business
of presentations – for buffed egos
and unfurled peacock feathers –
for fat chanticleers in sharp suits
and for ruffled hens in tottered heels
to preen at brand-gilded lecterns –
those podiums were once brushed –
leafed in beaten gold for unseen gods –
but I enwomb false altars in hewn MDF –
Set to stand – braced – for only one day
before a room of corporate disciples
who pray for the coming of closing remarks
#HustlePorn
You are a part of hustle porn
having once taken the dark oath
in a silent swearing-in
You surrender to twenty-hour days
missing every sunset in the week
You are schlepping overnight – there
imbibed upon their dripped breasts –
be they Yahoo’s or Spotify’s squeeze
in their rule of the way to work
You are pressed against the deadlines
with your suckled infant face
You dreamt of electric sheep
grazing on forever-rain rooftops
because you fell asleep reading
a novel – because you cannot sleep
Because your eyes are glued wide
open – because
You suffer hustle porn
Freelance
This quiescent night
is my daytime of no fools,
no calls, no unread emails,
no uploaded updates,
or delaying indecisions
about the final design,
which should be mine,
but is there to adjust
in other distant placed,
delayed, latte-meetings:
Shift an inch, or more,
back again, to the left!
The client’s always right.
Sick Note
No, I do not regularly
commute away to work,
or to pushy schools,
or sumptuous trips alone,
and there meet others,
and interact, deeply,
with so many people
in an assortment of places,
for assorted pleasures:
So I badly escape,
to the same rough places,
for a coffee, or beer,
and then slowly return,
usually at the call
of my freelance work.
I am always here. Alone.
My Work
My work, the drawn-up stuff,
takes me to chair-rattled halls
and outwardly fabulous hotels,
but these days I visit on-line
to inspect the not-right spaces,
to then conjure in the nothing
of their rent-echoed rooms
such ideas and extents of build
that will last hours, days
or weeks, but never much more:
My work, the drawn stuff,
does not last long, a soft recall,
like that of a night with an escort:
I let them fuck me with their ideas.
Freelance
I have worked too hard
and am dead on my feet:
this lost time is recorded
across a hundred invoices,
thousands of hours stamped
by receiving bookkeepers,
who will be ‘sure to pay’ me
way beyond thirty days:
and I will work hard, again, at
getting those payments in
for designs and late hours,
my long-dead work.
The Late Shift, Again
Another ridiculous o’clock
finding me drawn at my desk,
hauling creativity and effort
from finite resources that,
when I am slow and upright,
need my re-engineered stick,
but not here, sitting, making
other worlds and other places
to help win Soho agencies
their prizes, small fools’ jewels:
My rude award is their money,
ninety days later, if I’m lucky.
Fail Better
“All of old. Nothing else ever.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Samuel Beckett
K.P.
Under this tilted roof,
as designed by me,
here briefly sheltered,
but no deft-certificate,
no kite mark of designer,
unlike your good self –
certification as artist,
qualified by eye and time;
but I am not wood-worked,
not equally level-pegged:
I am highly uninstructed,
except by constant practice,
in this low art of commerce,
deft in invoiced bullshit:
Here we sit, under my tilt,
and I advise you, with my art,
to fail, but only better.