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The Zen of the Kitchenhand & it’s Friends & Enemies

 

The Zen of the Kitchenhand & it’s Friends & Enemies

 

Working for years as a dishwasher

I have old man’s hands

Wrinkled and lined

I like them

They are humble like me at my best

Like an ancient Indigenous Mexican woman’s face

I loved the job

Back when I was fit enough for it

If it wasn’t for the revoltingness of the chefs

& their incessant bullying

I might still be doing it

Lucky for me

I was privileged enough to be able to quit

Evidently I’m not as mentally strong as the many

Who are forced to endure it

In order to be able to live

I don’t really know

Maybe I’d somehow be the same

I hear stories of the rum fathers of Mauritius

Broken men

Forced by responsibilities to go on

In a destructive Tao

There are so many stories

Of which I am ignorant

I prefer listening to people I meet

Than reading official discourse

I don’t want to be a literary tourist anymore

I want to move & sit

 

As a kitchenhand

I used to Zen out

When I did the scrapping & the lifting & the cleaning under a torrent of mocking

The Yoga of work

Become the task

No tension

Don’t pull against it

Don’t deny what you are doing

It is life

It is sacred

Take things as they come

Beautiful

 

Then come the missiles

& corporate freescale massacres

People hacked to death with machetes in Rwanda

Stolen wages in the Congo

Ganglords in Russia & Columbia

Then come the rapes

The killing of babies in front of their loved ones

Poisoning the water & food supply

Poisoning the air & soil

Natural disasters come to denuded mountains

Drought & starvation

Fear beyond spirituality

 

Dishwashing was a meditation for me

& good for creativity

But for the cuntish chefs

Out of 50 or 60 chefs

I worked with

I worked for 2 nice guys

One an Italian ex-airforce guy

Calm, kind

Used to give me

A cut of the tips

A delicious meal

& takeaway beers

& a barely verbal

Japanese guy

Who was serene

& when the time was right

He’d tap me on the shoulder

& point to his opened mouth

& feed me incredible food

His utensils

A knife

& chopsticks

Both men shared peace with me

 

I quit the gig

After a spell in a bank kitchen

Because I lived

In a time & place

When/where

I could

Afterall I was born white

In Australia in the early 1970s

The privileged growing poorer by the day

 

 

Published & Copyright Malachi Doyle 2024.

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