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Matt Hein / Poetry / Bureaucracy /

Frigid Bureaucracies

Frigid bureaucracies. Written 12-28-04 By M. Aaron Hein.

Ah, bureaucracies, those cold and frigid entities. Though they exist under the facade of authority and greatness, under a seal which imparts them a polished and refined image, their own cold and senseless idiosyncracies define a culture which can only be understood from their own perspective. Things are accomplished according to protocol and policy, with stacks of legal papers to define just what “policy” is. Customer service issues? Take a number. Questions? Talk into a box and we’ll see what happens.

I approach the offices of the bureaucracy with dread
consigned to examinations of assurance
one like myself proceeds down a cold road
towards common thought of turbulance

towards the blank faced, rubber stamped automation
that is itself, an insurgence
to what I ask,
and then I know,
a travesty of a spirited, jovial
occurance

one like myself, one of countless droves who
step through those revolving glass doors, into the turbine
of an endless sea, crowds of greyness swarmed amongst
the cold, antiseptic waiting office, of which its periphery spreads for
miles and miles,

monitors and posted bulletin boards spreading news that must have existed
for quite the while
one steps into a well-oiled machine, gears greased, its exterior
neatly polished
and waxed,
but complex by all means.
beset by political hacks
those stern faced, wound up fools
whom eschew humor for a higher calling of
furor

and seem intent to attending to the clock’s ethereal reach,
and the moment’s power to beseech
they consult charts and diagrams and all those technical means
read manuals and manucripts that seem awfully lean
care little for the person, but the number’s gleam
for the threshold and bottom line, if met, are to be coveted,
it seems.

A culture of tenacity flourishes there, at the bureaucracy,
actions of calculated, to the moment punctuality followed to the
tune of humming computers, the resonating, stale voice over the
intercom shouting names and numbers, attendants ruminating over
perversely technical facts, piercing cellphones which open the windows
to details insanely intimate, voices of the collective crowd murmuring,
complaining for their turn at the desk to vent their ill-founded frustrations
while others watch on blankly, adrift amongst their own thoughts. All of
this, a chorus to the orchestration of typing and screeching, scratching
printers.

The culture of office hopping, purely timed breaks, seeks of those things,
closing and limits met,
bent on the impulses of a ravenous beast with insatiable appetite for
the public funds,
a beast which dwells amongst the file cabinets and network wires which
snake and coil amongst the walls to converge in some secret,
venerated place only said to exist in urban myths
propagated outside
of the bureaucracy by men in dark suits

you know
those same men who whisper loudly for one to approach from the
sidewalk to the alleyway for one reason or another
I stand there in the crowded line which stretches
a good mile back to the
revolving glass doors, the crinkled paper ticket in my hand smudged
from perspiration, the air frigid, but sweltering,
redolent mint wafts through the air, combining with
the awfully antiseptic
permeating scent, of dried ink and of those around me.

My turn approaches as I present my ticket to the teller,
who, rigid and
automated, reads it with barely a glance,
scans it from the hip, then plucks
from a towering pile, a thick stack of papers

name?
location?
meaning of existence?

questions spoken quickly, responded to with a simple curtness,
I’m told to wait it out,
consigned to an indefinite process of checks, balances
and meaningless things.

fin...

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