Money Poems
Leave New York
by Joshua Beckman
Leave New York or the poem will kill you
Langston Hughes wrote $ $ $ to be black
and $ $ $ so, soaking soaking
'Sapwood posts are a little bit cheaper'...
'a little bit cheaper' just write it and
come to dinner, don't come to dinner
until you've written your poem 'cheaper
than heartwood I could' 'I could
have bought all the heartwood from the start'
the startling thing is that they send a man off
......
Power
by Edwina Matthews
To some power is guns
To some power is knifes
To some power is the ability to read, and write.
To some power is control
To some power is a fist
To some like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. power was words.
To some power is like a trapped animal trying to get out of a cage.
To some power is love
To some power is art
To some power is money
......
The City In Which I Loved You
by Li-Young Lee
And when, in the city in which I love you,
even my most excellent song goes unanswered,
andI mount the scabbed streets,
the long shouts of avenues,
and tunnel sunken night in search of you...
That I negotiate fog, bituminous
rain rining like teeth into the beggar's tin,
or two men jackaling a third in some alley
weirdly lit by a couch on fire, that I
......
Without You
by Adrian Henri
Without you every morning would feel like going back to work after a holiday,
Without you I couldn't stand the smell of the East Lancs Road,
Without you ghost ferries would cross the Mersey manned by skeleton crews,
Without you I'd probably feel happy and have more money and time and nothing to do with it,
Without you I'd have to leave my stillborn poems on other people's doorsteps, wrapped in brown paper,
Without you there'd never be sauce to put on sausage butties,
Without you plastic flowers in shop windows would just be plastic flowers in shop windows,
Without you I'd spend my summers picking morosley over the remains of train crashes,
Without you white birds would wrench themselves free from my paintings and fly off dripping blood into the night,
Without you green apples wouldn't taste greener,
......
A Red Palm
by Gary Soto
You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.
That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair
......
THE CORE OF CURRUPTION
by Richie Kharis
Some cry so loudly for this strange thing
Some fight with all they’ve got for the same thing
Some dream of it but haven’t seen
Some believe they will have it while they live on
A thing so powerful and so evil
A thing that turns the gentle into pride
Something so peaceful and arrogant
A thing that makes the humble command
......
Everyones problem
by Morton Litwack
Bills, Bills, Bills
They're Starting to Give Me the Ills
We have to Pay
Whatever They Say
And Watch How They Empty our Tills
Get Your Head Out of Your Ass
by Randy Johnson
You're a woman who has beauty but not much class.
What you need to do is to get your head out of your ass.
You only want a man who earns a million or more each year.
You rejected a man who's a janitor because you disliked his career.
The problem that you have is that no rich man has ever asked you out.
When I tell you that you're going to be an old maid, I have no doubt.
You are also poor and that is why rich men don't want you.
Many of them are just as superficial as you are and that's true.
If you and they could realize that rich people and poor people are equals, the world would be a better place.
Get your head out of your ass, being rich doesn't make people superior and believing that it does is a disgrace.
......
ACROSTIC OF A REFINED SELF
by Jonathan Tafreg
Enlightenment is essential in overcoming
Darkness which is the most scariest and
Ugliest of all that obscures human
Character and personality whereby
A man who trades wisdom for
Taboos and a bag of idiocies
Is as useless as a curse and
Omen that stands before the prosperity of the
Nation.
......
I'm In Jail Because of My Wife's Breasts
by Randy Johnson
Even though my wife is somebody who I love and adore.
She decided not to let me touch or see her boobs anymore.
Every time I wanted to see or caress them, she said no and I would cry.
She wouldn't let me anywhere near them and she told me the reason why.
She said that I couldn't see or touch them because I'm poor.
She said that I could see and touch them if I got rich but not before.
But I've always been so poor that I'm destitute.
Last month, I decided to rob a bank to get the loot.
I was caught by the cops after they shot me in the dick.
I knew that I would go to jail, I knew that I was licked.
......
