Mammon by Jerome Berglund

A frustrating necessity, through the pursuit of which 99% of us are obliged to spend an unfortunate amount of our lives dedicated, and essentially waste and fritter half or more of waking hours in the best good years away towards should we care to entertain notions of having our own place or starting a family, possibilities which even through diligent effort might be thwarted by circumstance and ill fortune. All to benefit a tiny portion of the population who through no effort or deserving of their own were born into possession of copious quantities of it, and use like a bayonet to force the rest of us to march to the beat of their drums, prostrate ourselves and wait hand and foot upon them for vast majority of our primes, to make them more which we are entitled to no share of their profits resulting from, but rather are broken off tiniest crumbs they are legally and demandedly able to. The root of all treachery, dark god to which bloated rapacious industrialist and devilish tycoon dedicate every conscious moment hour and care, at the altar of which untold quantities of blood has been and continues to be spilt throughout the ages, at the heart of why every war has been waged, each genocide rationalized. What has made prostitutes, johns, janes, pimps or madams of every man and woman since time immemorial, that horrid blasphemous abhorrent necessity on which every facet of our modern society seems to pivot. I curse it.

feet first –

takes the bourbon

straight

wolf tunnel

more shootin’

less tyin’

camellias blooming

overturned lamp is still

illuminated

gun smoke

chews

the toothpick

--

Jerome Berglund has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Many haiku, haiga and haibun he’s written have been exhibited or are forthcoming online and in print, most recently in bottle rockets, Frogpond, Kingfisher, and Presence. His most recent collection of poetry "Eleusinian Solutions" was just released by Mōtus Audāx press!