Only her scarce trust
She saves and is stingy with
Freely spending time

As I watch the kids, being fetched by their parents
I frown and looked away, as I got fetched by my driver
I quietly sat down and had to endure the silence
my misery worsens as i hear kids laughter

I was trained to be an heir
with everything on my plate
I'm grateful and happy for it
but I jus't didn't want this fate

As i ate on the kitchen table..
i only saw a note from my dad
"I'm going out for awhile, tell your mom"
Do i have the right to be mad?

"MOM I HAD ENOUGH!"
tears beginning to escape my eyes
my mom looked at me confused
as to why i started to cry

mom, dad, I don't need fame
mom, dad, I don't want your money
What i want, is something you can't buy...
"I just want you... to love me"

and thats what they have to realize...
that something..money can't buy

If we ate the rich
We could build playhouses from their bones
Paint fairytales onto marrow
Watch our children dig pixie dust from the grooves
Charleston to their windchime laughter

If we ate the rich
We could pave roads with their teeth
Crushed into twinkling mosaics
Speed in glee down the polished calcium roads
Walk on blooms of gold and lilac at sunset

If we ate the rich
Their skin could line our altars
Or catch the heat slipping through our walls
To warm our hearts or frozen feet
Whichever love was needed most

If we ate the rich
And cleaned our teeth for ligaments
And spat out the fatty gristle
And when all that remained of the last billionaire
Were just an eyesocket and some coins

We could sit back,
Minds and bellies full to the brim,
Fragmented bourgeoisie burps ringing, melodious,
And laugh at those who claimed, in the old days,

"You can't eat money".

in great penury
he twinkles in happiness –
rich man in disguise

To Whom it May Concern,

My blood begins to burn
and I’m compelled to spurn
the current plans to turn
our mascot to a worm.

The members from my firm
cannot stay taciturn
when our alumni learn
that strangers overturned
the past we had governed
because they’re all stubborn,
seeking to be modern
and spread, exploit and churn
their folly and their germs.

I urge you to discern
the consequence you’ll earn
unless you can confirm
our legacy long-term.
We will not adjourn
until it’s reaffirmed
that history is stern
and keeps our old pattern.

If you do not concur
and submit to our terms,
then surely you will yearn
for courtesy interns
as funding will downturn
and we will watch you squirm
like spiders in an urn
at the point of no return.

Sincerely, Dr. Kern

Prose
A waterfall
Black and tarry
Flavoured waves of licorice
Lapping like kittens
Against the shore
Her garden is not one of Eden
But one of thorns
Dark and bruising scrub land
An ink stain against the sky
Filthy with life
A broaching scuffle
In richly opulent underbrush
A white and twisted creature
Seeping with magick

When is a man destitute? Destitution
is not being impecunious. If ever you
are poor, you are poor of heart. If ever
you are without, you are impoverished
of spirit. When coins of kindness cease to
flow from your being, then you are destitute.
Wealth is not worth.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

Fractured light gleams off the walls
Reflecting off the Rolex strewn casually across his immaculate desk
Its platinum plating smirking at the watchers
From under the diamond rock.

He wanders through the halls
Stares at the struggles of those below him
Through the translucent walls.

Reaches out a hand
But can never touch the world
Obscured by the diamond windows
That are his prison.

Tilted, rounded walls make caricatures
Of lives, of livelihoods, of people
Like funhouse mirrors in the playground
Of life.

He winds his way through the streets
Of those outside his cell.
Staring through the milky panels
That bar him from his subjects.

Though he can never touch, never truly see
It is he who holds the power
above the watchers below.