Artwork © Richard Spisak

 

When they over priced the roof, above our heads

Since the price is so very dear,
we’ll be tenting it seems, this time next year.
And given the cost, of a box of roofing tiles,
You may work ten long years, plus just a little longer while.

The investment community in pursuit of profit,
has decided to claim the domicile, and you must not dare not,
          scoff it.
Cause what the hell you can’t compare a place to sleep,
versus the profit so stratospheric, Climbing higher so very STEEP.
Even the price of cremation is heaven high, said to shock the
          living and stir the dead.
It must be said, who you must see, to be thus disposed of “proper,”
          we can’t quite as easily
just insert them in any old popcorn popper?

We spoke with an attorney the other day, about what it takes
          to put your party favors away.
And just how the affairs must be put in order, in case after
          all, your soul will suddenly
make that last fast dash quick for the border. WOE to THOSE,
          who leave their droppings
alas, in DISORDER.

And what about your jangly trinkets and all that other stuff.
That debris accumulated atop the dresser, and the lessor, down there
with those dust bunnies down beneath the shelf?

Most of that stuff will go winging to a willing dumpster,
we have little expectation it will be wanted by one of our hungry
          even needy youngsters.

Then there’s a bit of news from way down under,
in Australia it seems they’ve designed a hole in their infrastructure,
with home priced streaking thus the people suffer. Higher and Higher
          creeping into realms celestial ,
now currency defined, investments in buildings which might’ve
          otherwise been residential.
They tell us, what they would sell us. A million dollars is
          now the price of an average house
and if you buy one of them, you might have to sell or at least
          rent out your spouse
and sublet the hallway closet to some itinerant mouse.

They want a million bucks or more for a reachy average house
I heard the score? What the hell are they thinking?
Have the p-p-Priced all the humans out’a doors?

 

Richard Spisak began his artistic career as a light artist in the Lumonics Studios of Mel Tanner, a legendary Light Artist. After serving under Jack Horkheimer as a planetarium operator at the Miami Space-Transit Planetarium, he left to begin traveling with Lumist Kenvin Lyman, whose show Dazzleland Studios traveled across America. Richard later worked as a Laserist with LASERIUM and Laser Productions, served as a technical producer for the festival company PACE Concerts, and later as operations Manager and Senior Producer at WWHP and WTCN-TV in Stuart Florida.

Richard writes for Theatre, TV, radio, and the web. He published two short story collections, Two Small Windows, in a Pair of Mirror Doors, and Between the Silences. Followed by his poetry collection 7370 Allen Drive and the recently released STONE POETRY. Richard also produces “POETS of the East,” a televised webcast featuring poets from across the globe.