> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# "That Writing in an Empty Room Feels Like Money Wasted" and "Money Being" by Shane McCrae
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/shane-mccrae/
- Published: 2014-03-12T20:24:51.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:44:32.000Z
- Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Shane McCrae for his sixth in a monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Joe Pan
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

*Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by* [*Shane McCrae*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane%5FMcCrae?ref=hyperallergic.com) *for his* [*series*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) *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)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/03/12961496114_d72be78508_b-6401.jpg)

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