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.
* * *
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
* * *
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
Oh Lord
wish I had a nickel
every time I hear something silly
Oprah give me strength
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