we shift with unease, view & movement obstructed,
in this dingy apartment, no room to breathe
earning our daily bread, while hunch-backed
bones aching, eyes blood-shot, bellies soft-
slaving on rented machines that measure your footing
among the ranks of a populace doomed since the birth of nyarlathotep
whose claws are still sunken deep into the chasms of the rich
(are you hollow & golden? money, money, money, they clamour)
the artist, at the mercy of the beast, paints inane landscapes with words devoid of meaning
(while we sink deeper into the quicksand of poverty)
invisible, yet breaking our backs, forgoing food for reaping profits for another

you're used, I whisper
as I bristle with impotent anger while brandishing my servitude
my dreams lay packed inside a paper bag of acrylics
brushes bigger than my dwindling self-esteem--------

the poor weeps: their wasteland of false dreams are wilted, decayed
the dead April sun shines on a seemingly abandoned city -
the rich feasts, lamenting the dearth of pheasant meat,
while we scavenge off the scraps that litter their backyard.

the curtain falls,
they laugh, perching on our exoskeletons

the manure for the civilizations that were, and are to come.