Accounts Payable
By Bill Berkson
... cantered light-heartedly downstream to their doom.
— Patrick Leigh Fermor
— Patrick Leigh Fermor
Somebody down there hates us deeply,
Has planted a thorn where slightest woe may overrun.
Disorderly and youthful sorrow, many divots picked at since
Across the thrice-hounded comfort zone.
Can’t cut it, sees permanent crones
Encroaching aside likely lanes of executive tar
All spread skyward.
You got the picture, Bub:
This world is ours no more,
And those other euphemisms for grimly twisting wrath,
A wire-mesh semblance bedecked
With twilight’s steamy regard.
Look at the wind out here.
Delete imperative.
Hours where money rinses life like sex,
Whichever nowadays serves as its signifier.
Source: Poetry (June 2014)