Turbulent Times For Poets 1

Turbulent Times For Poets

They praise your pain

when you’re buried and gone,

frame your words

like you lived it all wrong.

No coins for the hungry

while breathing and broke,

but they quote your sorrow

like a sacred joke.

They sell your name

when your voice is still—

a ghost on paper

they package and bill.

So write it now,

bleed ink, don’t beg—

the poet gets paid

with a toe tag and a peg.

They want your truth

but not your face,

they want your wounds

wrapped up in grace.

Starve with your story,

smile through the ache—

they only applaud

when there’s nothing to take.

Fame in a casket,

a name etched in stone—

but while you were living,

you wrote all alone.