Money Making Opportunities (Poem) with brief Comment

"Money Making Opportunities"
by Tim Kavi

rage
rage against the age
when all the machines
make us a slouch
while
pretending to be happy
credit card
debt
makes us a grouch

lobbies so strong
that we can
no longer afford
medicine's healing song

there's a cave man in the gulch

gentle ones ignored
sitting in brown and red
longing for peace
lines so long
where their money is stored
working till the day before they're dead!

rage
rage
though we sit in quiet still
marching to a drum
of some peaceful man's vigil
we long to see his face again
but he is not there
working man's empty stare
gone to the graveyards where
the great ones rot

there's a cave man in the gulch

so much seriousness
money making deliriousness
stop the presses
I own real estate
stocks and bonds
someone take me serious
clean up my messes
will you?

I can't stop
bleeding money
puking rare bones
passed like kidney stones
they won't let me
it's not funny

there's a laughing man in the gulch

rushing and screaming
shopkeepers and merchants
go scheming
their success
leaves them beaming
as they count
their spoils
who needs war
money is their whore!

sweep the walk
scrub the counters
sweet talk
what for
there's a customer in the store!

there's a laughing man in the gulch

rage
rage
stop this shit
guaranteed unlimited
income is assured
and cemented
just nineteen ninety five
send it to me today
oh happy day

there's a laughing man in the gulch!

poet's brief note:

this poem was written in October of 2007. Well before the economic mess of a year later, and look at this stanza:

so much seriousness
money making deliriousness
stop the presses
I own real estate
stocks and bonds
someone take me serious
clean up my messes
will you?

Now, in light of the mortgage and lending scandal for real estate, this looks almost prophetic? ;-) It also reminds me of my short story American Crow (currently unpublished) also written over a year ago where one of the names of the characters "Ryan Newhouse" is an indictment of the whole real estate thing as a dying corpse, at a time when the media didn't know about it, or report it like they are now. Among the points that this story makes, is an inditement of American capitalism and youth that is being destroyed by an erosion of basic human values such as personal interconnectedness. American capitalism is marked by a black crow like nature seeking, its former greatness that has been compromised by enemies that are more subtle than those the armies are fighting. Among the enemies are blind materialism and a byproduct of overinflated wealth, the laziness of a culture of leisure. --T.K.