Ted Carp

Ted Carp

Once in the early 90s, I got 

in an elevator with Ted Carp 

and his wife, but I didn't say 

anything to him or even nod 

because he seemed frightened. 

I didn't enjoy the unrelenting 

doom he was able to versify. 

I'd met him, like, fifteen years 

or so earlier, and he was pretty 

feisty and free, but in that lift, 

he looked busted down: I'd 

     read from his poems he'd 

been busted down after birth,

     as well as his brother, too.

He was the only one who fore

          shadowed what we're 

     enduring now with aristos

hoarding all the green, holding 

     it away from the rest of us, 

like, "you should just die if you 

please," even if we don't please,

us over barrels shot of rotten

     carp packaged without salt.

Rich but stupid, unlike carp, 

     aristos have inflated riches, 

paper against which to invest.

     At some point they rot, too,

but our Commodus frees them.

The rest of us will starve until

our Commodus gets hit by his

     wife's Narcissus switch.

[didactic]