by | November 1, 2010 · 1:06 am
↓ Jump to Comments

crossed by Dorothee Lang

they worked in hopeless jobs
counted days like in prison
kept themselves going
by playing the lottery
twice a week
they made their well-calculated crosses,
waited and lived
underneath their dreams
of another life
born from a constellation
of least favorite numbers

.

Return to This Week’s Flash

12 Comments

Filed under Dorothee Lang

12 responses to “crossed by Dorothee Lang”

  1. Matt Potter
    November 4, 2010 at 9:14 pm

    Is this about the stupid jobs we have all done at one time … or about the worst, which most of us will never have to suffer?

    Reply
  2. Al McDermid
    November 4, 2010 at 9:42 pm

    The Lottery: Keeping Hope a Lie Since 1984.

    Nicely done. I think anyone who’s ever worked a dead-end job can appreciate this.

    Reply
  3. Dorothee
    November 5, 2010 at 4:36 am

    good question – about which kind of jobs is this? i guess about those who are perceived as being stuck in, where you count down to the weekend from monday on. thinking of it, in some ways, the hope for another life might be similar both in the stupid jobs, and the really bad jobs. (and interesting that there are schedules for all material things, but for emotions like hope and fear, there isn’t).

    Reply
  4. Dorothee
    November 5, 2010 at 4:39 am

    (and of course this should read “scales” instead of “schedules”.)

    Reply
  5. susan
    November 5, 2010 at 5:00 am

    You’ve nailed it here, Dorothee; so many of us can relate to this feeling of the netherworld between hope and reality. Nice!

    Reply
  6. ganymeder
    November 5, 2010 at 5:28 am

    Thinking yourself a slave stuck in a hated job always makes life seem darker. Nicely done.

    Reply
  7. Randal Houle
    November 5, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    Thank you Dorothee for sharing this… someone doesn’t like their job, glad we all can write about it HA

    Reply
  8. Dorothee
    November 6, 2010 at 7:27 am

    and i meant to add the story of this flash: i took the theme “least favorite” with me when i had to go to a place that actually ranges among my least favorite places: the dentist. i thought that being there might bring an idea for a story, maybe a first draft – and arrived at this poem.

    Reply
  9. Stella Pierides
    November 6, 2010 at 8:23 am

    I like the thread of a belief in fate that runs through this poem – it is consistent and sharpens the picture painted! Well done!

    Reply
  10. Kelly Grotke
    November 7, 2010 at 6:32 am

    nice, how hope and fate combine almost unwillingly

    Reply
  11. LindaSW
    November 11, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    The desperate person’s pension. Evocative stuff, Dorothee. Peace…

    Reply

  12. Pingback: Week #25 – least favorite « 52|250 A Year of Flash

Leave a Reply to Stella Pierides Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s