Planning for the Future.

“Times are tough,” the voices rang
from out my television,
“A war is on, the world grows hot,
propriety’s in rescission.”

It is today my search begins
for what, oh what, comes next.
Alack! This market's dearth of jobs
has found me quite perplexed!

I cannot be a banker, for
the banks have all been shut.
I cannot be a lawyer, for
I laugh when I rebut.

It’s no time to enter business
and besides I lack the skill
to sell you sweater blankets
or a new George Foreman grill.

I haven’t taken science since
around eleventh grade,
don’t know a single thing about
how guns and drugs are made,

I haven’t got the wit to write
for pithy, poignant blogs,
and I’m far to small in stature
to walk all the neighbors' dogs.

Whatever shall I do! I cry,
and throw my hands above,
when at once the answer hits me
like a leather dueling glove –

My path is clear, the challenge set,
now that I finally know it –
the only job for times like these
is this: professional poet.

I’ll use the word “Diaphanous”
(though I do not know its meaning),
I’ll let me studio go grey
from months of never cleaning.

I’ll write the tale of Orpheus,
(that’s one you’ve never heard),
I’ll write about the Writer’s lot
(the burden is absurd).

The smoke of a thousand cigarettes
will curl around my face
grown wrinkled far before its time
with haggard artist’s grace.

I’ll write in odes and ballads,
here and there the odd Haiku.
If your culture has a subtle form,
you can bet I’ll steal it too!

I’ll write my dedications
to the poets of the past,
with all the cheeky knowledge
that my skillz have theirs surpassed.

And when I die in poverty,
as all great poets do,
I’ll do it with the knowledge
to mine own self, I’ve been true.

For it takes the greatest courage
to compose in metered lines,
and all my greatest iambs will be
summoned in their time

To take the boldest statements down
in bile and blood and ink…
just please don’t make me get a job,
it’s clearly going to stink.