All the Way to the Bank, Laughing [poema]

She gets a text while sitting across from me
Her device buzzes like a doorbell and demands
“Ask him if he’s hungry enough to be a poet”
Am I willing to commit to the last, best hope?
That’s what we are going to address…

While self-anointed apostles, solemn and monkish
Are spiritually saturated with triviality?
Is it not obvious by now that in secret moments
They are dreaming of ravishing magnificent pumpkins?
We can discuss whether or not I’ve got the juice…

But to our right, there is a phalanx of bleach-haired women
Scheming behind a six-foot wall of shrill dissonance
Their deadened eyes reflect the same old news
While on the live stream, a fire creeps across the horizon
Why not ask if I’m hungry enough…

To boil an oil oligarch while achieving viral visibility?
Or to cook the books to mine own liking—still pink in the middle
Without this rapacity, I would be busy dancing
And following the scent of burning money
All the way to the bank, laughing

Photo/Ray Larsen