greed
It's amazing what one word will spark. My friends are hungry. I am hungry; though what I hunger for changes day to day. I would not deny, though, I live a rather lean life since most my pleasures are imaginary. Greed is an interesting emotion. We starve ourselves then get upset when our bellies rumble. We work endlessly but the shame of being seen as weak or lazy or a parasite on others pushes us ever on … well, it does for me.
As I was walking over to the Grand Rapids library I read these lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 75: … starved for a look;/ Possessing or pursuing no delight/ Save what is had, or must from you be took./ Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,/ Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
"Me too!" I thought to myself, "me too!"
I do not think greed is as bad as all that in context; it's the starving that is the problem. Greed is simply the body's sad cry that it is not being taken care of. I find it ironic that I am fully aware of poetry's function of feeding the soul and yet I am a terrible steward of my self. But this is not new; I have been starving for years. When I was in graduate school in Las Vegas I wrote the lines, "Blue is my belly/ intestines entwined/ I have been a poor father/ to these desires/ I wish to cut them out …" and I meant it, I really wished back then I could take a knife and cut that part of the soul out that controls "desire" and "hunger" and "yearning" right out of my body the way a doctor removes a cancer lump … and did then and I still do today.
If I could I would ask the future I can not imagine a question it would be: "O child, what good is hunger if you cannot feed? Why do we have greed if there is no way to appease this terrible appetite, O child to come, O child who will never be?"
After guilt and surely after pleasure
all our bodies are just bodies and greed
is good and implies what we all prefer
to do and no one ever has to bleed
for their disgrace, listen, you to not need
to bleed for disgrace; I will pray for you
because only this little word will feed
you and today I want you fed. Who knew
you were so hungry? Oh my love, succeed
where we all failed. Learn love. Make new mistakes.
Awake from birth knowing this word will lead
you to new greed in the midst of heartaches.
It's your birthright. This word is your reward.
It's your birthright. Your reward is this word.