The Violence of Money
There is never an ending
to the spending
a world of paper
and plastic to collect
and horde
clothes
and cars
and homes
and jewelry
and fine wine
and paintings
stocks and bonds
vacations
and expectations
entire vocations
devoted to
disguising the numbers
the Caribbean masquerade
to volumes of recorded
purchases and voices
of invoices
making
discreet
choices
all
to extend
the accumulation
of dates
and names
places and faces
communications
and connections
at breakneck
speed
must fill the need
must fill the need
a shouting browbeating
broadband
handing over
fistfuls of cash
to make sure
make certain
only the best
the finest
the rarest
of air is not available
for
the underwater martyrs
the silent box dwellers
the empty bottle collectors
the wheelchair drifters
the SRO limbo sellers
the workers at
the bottom
of the
fast
food
chain
and the indigent gamblers
who line the halls
to knock on doors
of government departments
crippled by reckless
and corrupt state
administrations
choking the dwindling
sources
and resources
that have
nothing to do
but
count the days
and ways
to disappoint
disarm dismay
dispute the reputations
and applications
held in sweaty palms
eager
to begin living
to end the doubt
to end the not having
the counting of pennies
the slow heroin erosion
the unbroken hollowness
the whiskey-soaked
ravages of vacant histories
better-forgotten memories
of cold emergency rooms
to end being
in a world
apart
a world
of resentment
of fear and hate and anger
of dark empty streets
empty recriminations
empty promises
made to themselves
by themselves
harming themselves
or
arming themselves
to rob to steal
to maim
to take whatever they can
for as long as they can
to approximate
the wonder and magic
of having what you need
when you need it or want it
to not have to beg
to not have to humiliate
or be humiliated
to not have to watch
the ease of others
who have a casual
contempt for misfortune
and respect for nothing
but their own wealth
of deception
to breeze through
tall golden doors
to an unbroken string
of shiny bright todays
and tomorrows
to not have to
lunge for hope
and
never grasp it
in all ways
and forever
just out of
reach
Copyright © Barry Levy | Year Posted 2016
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