Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Shane McCrae for his series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.

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Robert Polidori, “Enfilade, Salle les princes royales, (86) ANR.02.004, Salles du XVII, Alle du Nord – 1er Etage” (2010), Kodak Endura print mounted to Dibond, at Edwynn Houk Gallery (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

Robert Polidori, “Enfilade, Salle les princes royales, (86) ANR.02.004, Salles du XVII, Alle du Nord – 1er Etage” (2010), Kodak Endura print mounted to Dibond, at Edwynn Houk Gallery (photo Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic)

That Writing in an Empty Room Feels Like Money Wasted

The heavy pastness of

Money drags even

back ideas

from the timeless present Lord / Of their conception

into money’s present past     / Or if I had more money would it not feel even present gone

I write Lord from the living room

Where also Lord I write

My daughter now in bed

Lord I have said     or say it now

Or said and say it now     / Time is not money

being in     time is money     / Thinking in time is money

Writing in time is money and

having an audience any

audience feels like money coming back

I have to Lord believe / It would

and does

It will come back and bring me back

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Money Being

I seeing say the world but money comes between

Always the name of the thing and the thing itself     / A second garden interrupting

Lord     / The naming of the world

A second garden Lord and as the first

No locus of creation money being

Instead the place in which I found myself already Lord created     money being

The place from which I speak    the already Lord created     into being

Lord money re-inscribes

No god itself     / But where I go

To be with and to hide from God

You     / I name the world from where I hide from You

Lord money being     the name that calls

the living to life

Joe Pan grew up along the Space Coast of Florida and attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His debut poetry book, Autobiomythography & Gallery, was named “Best First Book of the Year”...

2 replies on ““That Writing in an Empty Room Feels Like Money Wasted” and “Money Being” by Shane McCrae”

  1. to under stand poetry is to know creation herself living no denying building love the waste is the world of the non poet the bafoon bellowing loud loud loud why is ignorance of being always so loud… anyway being a poet is life herself directing the organ and ism…gjmars

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