Talent goes to die in the slums
where cigarette ash reads lines
Algebra tables and canterbury tales
whisped away by holes in the floor
where wind bleeds between the cracks;
“Maybe they might be fucking scum”
from between the eyebrow blades
cast so high on the shelf of diveted gold,
Horn-rimmed glasses and soured coffee by age,
Divides are given rather than earned
and great talent is spurned;
Fortunes one-oh-one, four in a row
Spaced evenly, neat industrial white
that forgets the old blood of exploited souls,
and scaped goats that carried the weight of war,
Measure gold in one hand and pocket the other
Is why talent is forgotten in the slums