a crappy poem written while working

i had a friend

who told me

what’re you gonna do?

write a poem?

so I wrote this poem, for this friend

who doesn’t have a job, since he told me so long ago, that we had to work, 

and not write poems.

no one has a job,

we just steal time, 

from the cosmic uncertainty, press it into dollars, and smug ourselves rich while others hunger

starve, on our words, proffered after the tips of our rifles

is this it? civilization? built on the fence and the sword?

I might as well write a poem.

or build a house, and as I think, where does the money come from?

i dig a hole, into the gleyed matter below, extract the minerals, it fills with water,

and the pipes, freshly unrusted, carry it to the factory

belching smoke, as the wheels turn, toys for tots … it still doesn’t answer my question.

at the edge of the vegetable patch, by the sea, fish dry in the sun. and the lawyer fills his wallet with words words words, does this answer the question??

maybe it does, it’s all made up!

by that monkey with a gun.

or, by the poems that are dumb (like contracts), or ugly (like newspapers).