Hundred Dollar Poem

Saga of Rowena: Feelin’ no pain O how’ll I ever sustain?

IwishIwishIwishIwerepartofthesky,

TherewouldbeNOBANKZ

No safeway cashiers robbing you blind so you can eat in winter,

No landlords aknockin’ at your door for dollars and cents,

My money has burnt a hole in my mattress…I am cold lonely and

Broke and all I have to sleep on is an ash heap.

Even my refrigerator it sings the blues for butter and eggs

I do not understand these people- these dentists and barbers and

Abortionists.

They take what you have and it is still not enough. They want

Your goddamned money, too.

But I have a heart of gold I’m told

Free of dollars and cents

O Don’t let me be your dollars and cents baby.

I am not a cash crop. You couldn’t buy me at a store.

(They chose me out of a hospital window, Sweetheart, and they

made sure to pick the only one with a rose tattoo)…

O I am but a crazy woman

I would jump out of planes if I could

I’d play my cello till the sky turned yellow

O I am a naked woman in the mountains…they’ve taken my

Body, now they want my soul

I’d go to Venus and Jupiter on my P.F. flyers. I’d wear silver

And pink, paint my body effervescent blue. For you.

I would keep 72 mutt dogs

And 99 beds of roses on my kitchen floor.

I would grow artichoke hearts in my oven at an even temperature

And have faucets that leaked lime daiquiris and green rivers

To the thirst wanton fields.

I would live inside a volcano at sea

And marry a fire swallower to take care of me…

Saga of Rowena: broke and lonely, eating the blues for her dinner…

-RD