Wednesday, July 16, 2008

BAD CAPITALIST

by Art Goodtimes


Call me terrible at sales.
I’m a bad capitalist.
Hard to fake.

Spent a couple of clevelands
on a chapbook.
Only sold a handful.

I mean, who pays
for poetry? Ended up just
givin’ it away.

As all my lovers did
in the Sixties. A gifted
generation.

As I did with herb.
Unable & unwilling
to sell my friends.

Who charges kin
to experience ecstatic
mindful mindlessness?

Which torques me back
to sales. Screw the spin.
All I can sell others on

is what I believe in.
And all I can keep’s
what longs to be given away


Poetry editor for Earth First! Journal (1981-91), Art Goodtimes makes his living as a freelance writer and third term Green Party county commissioner in Telluride, Colorado, and runs Talking Gourds, an annual earth festival dedicated to the word in performance. "Bad Capitalist" is part of a series called Hai-unCouth.
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