Poetry

Laissez Faire by: C.L. Butler

(published in the University of Houston-Downtown Bayou Review, 2017)

What’s the matter with you?

How could this be the case? What is to gain from betrayal?

You really thought he would keep his word?

How could you not see this is a game of chess?

How could you go from working for the company to being the one thing that destroys it?

And what ever happened to your predecessor?

Was he really a one hand man?

Or is it just an urban legend?

When you embezzled the cash did you see yourself as Dilliginer or Billy the Kid?

What makes you think we don’t know the truth?

And how much time did you think it would take for us to notice that criminals can wear suits?

What makes you think you can get away with this type of economic treachery?

Where is the money?

You didn’t really think I’d forget did you?

Why are you so worried?

And where is the man with one hand?

How could you steal from innocent people, your own customers at that?

Do you not think that your ancestors would frown upon your actions?

You can’t really be that rich, can you?

Or is it wealth at that point?

Does the man with the one hand know what you did?

Will you kill me if I tell him? 

Isn’t that what you global aristocrats do?

Where do we go next? 

How come you refuse to let me in your corporate conglomerate?

Why can’t I be an intern in your world of interest rates and predatory lending?

Will that not eradicate my woes like an Englishman delivering a blanket of smallpox?

When did we sell our souls?

Was it really worth it?

Did we really think the stock market could help us escape our problems?

And when did we let it become our opioid?

How did the one hand man lose his other hand?

How did we let it get this far?

Who let this evil crew of cronies brew a stew of vile magnitude?

If we steal from the poor daily should we not show them gratitude?