Barry Levy | + Follow Poet |
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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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John Hamilton Date: 8/9/2016 8:38:00 AM "rarest of air not available to underwater martyrs" this is brilliant writing! Do you know how good this is? Hopefully not it's good to stay humble. You are a rising star Barry, I really appreciate and feel what you write, hopefully others will catch on and you get the views you deserve! The shape does it mean something? Login to Reply Barry Levy Date: 8/18/2016 5:45:00 PM Thank you very much for kind words, your enthusiastic appreciation and encouragement. It is truly humbling. As for the shape of it, I just wanted a rapid lyrical flow. Something visceral to capture the running river of murky money in which we all swim; and many of us sink.