human shit

fat-boy has been out of university 6 weeks  
fresh from his masters degree  
and proud of it  
like it means something  
 
got himself a job  
as a minor manager  
at the local waste depot  
working out what to do  
with the endless stream  
of unmentionables  
we burn through  
while we make our lives  
pretty  
 
meanwhile  
in another part of town  
part of my own daily grind  
was to get rid of an old pond  
full of human shit  
so I went knocking on his door  
 
he wasn’t keen to agree to nothin’  
could see it in the way he held himself;  
 
big-fish-little-pond pain-in-the-arse  
 
so I sucked up my ego  
and let him know how hard his job must be  
how much trouble I must be causing him  
how thankless his task is  
 
could see him rolling over  
to warm in the sunlight of praise  
so laid it on thicker  
“not here to make your job harder”  
“let me know if we can make things easier for you”  
“my phone is always on  
to help you out”  
 
walked out of his office  
agreement in hand  
and then  
for 8 days  
covered every inch of his site  
in 2 feet  
of that ancient  
vicious  
sludge  
 
one day soon  
he’ll figure out  
if he hasn’t already  
that the guy who came bearing smiles  
was playing a longer game  
and if he does  
he can thank 400 truckloads of human shit  
for learnin’ him more  
than his pride ever did