Soul Worth
Soul Weigh
for D.B.A.

one hard fuck
and you could have an estate
worth $40 M más o menos

I am not available to just anyone
no longer available to you
to the brute that you are

able to see nothing
unable to see anything

me or what I am worth
in your without-vision hands
and I'd be worthless

what I am worth or could be
it seems, you haven't a clue
so backward, so simpleminded

smart enough to get a PhD
with sense enough only to seek a job
rather than create employment
for 5 thousand or more

$20 and $20 more
on your birthday
and you object, protest
almost refuse to accept

suggest that I am not a millionaire
when I was a millionaire
when I was born or before
or just after

when the several hundred poems
I have written of you
are worth millions or can be

enough to buy candy
for all the children of the Commonwealth
of The Bahamas for Christmas
and Easter eggs for Easter
as well as Easter bunnies

where is your vision
able to study, unable to imagine

you weigh with this country's eyes
see what this country sees
think what this country thinks
of poets of poetry

what will you do with-
what will become of
your own ability to create,
to right, to write

up in the night
children asleep


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
11:47 a.m. 29.11.10