Lament by Richard Wells (For Phebe)

Trouble

and I can’t drag
two-hundred bucks
outta my bank account

            What bank account

and I can’t drag
a hundred bucks
outta the old man’s bank account

            What bank account

and I can’t drag
fifty bucks outta my
best friend’s bank account

            What best friend

Trouble

is not my middle name

            my middle name is
                        busted
            my last name is
                        broke
       and my first name is
                          flat

Flat god-damn Busted Broke

And ain’t life just grand
in Donald Trump’s America
            which is
                        America the Same

24/7
all the time
doesn’t matter
who’s squatting
in the White House

            Ain’t my house

It is
           my America

            every 50 states of it
                        and territories
                                 like Samoa

                        and I resent
                        that with all this real-estate

I can’t drag
two-hundred bucks
outta my non-existent
bank account.

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After a brush with the grim reaper at age seven, Richard Wells sat down at his family’s Remington, and started his autobiography.  In one form or another, that’s all he’s been writing ever since, and he’s now 73.