No Pensions for Poets

my career wasn’t going that well
so I had to get a job which I lost
the insurance went as well, then the house
I was a nihilist in denial, didn’t believe
my own resume on monsters dot com

I was repentant and gave up poetry
these are hard times after all
and conspicuous assumption
is against all fashion, I fall
between the cracks of decency

I had to face the tangible fact that
I was completely unemployable
the agencies wouldn’t even talk
poetry had not prepared me for
my golden years of blissful leisure

spent most my pension and 401 on women,
wine and high living, the rest I wasted
retirement was out of the question
only the breath, the final breath
finishes a poem.