The Economics Of Poetry

INDRAN AMIRTHANAYAGAM-06/18/2022

I will try to balance

the books, moral

and historical ones,

caused by migration,

that give me

 

a paycheck and put

food and drink

on the table, that keep

my immediate family

in form, moving ahead,

that come up now

 

as I think of

malnourished kids

in Sri Lankan hospitals,

of mothers unable to feed

 

them fish or eggs,

of bread not rising

in bakeries, of petrol

so expensive and scarce

that people are dying

 

for lack of it, dying

in lines waiting

to fill their canisters–

the Sun murderous

and generous equally

 

to the unprotected,

the weak, the hungry,

while in America,

sweet land of liberty

where the Dream

 

courses through

my veins mature

in production of

red and white cells,

in my cozy house

 

whose mortgage

I pay every month

seamlessly from

my bank account

I am publishing poetry.

 

Indran Amirthanayagam, c) June 18, 2022