We never asked for the multiple overtures from the Bahman bums
\nwho took none of his creeds to their grasping chest cavities,
\nbut there we were,
\nspreading out the adverts masking as letters,
\nall claiming to know exactly
\nthe bind we were in and what they would do – for
\na nominal fee – to get us out of a debt
\nour understanding informed us
\ndidn’t exist.<\/p>\n
All through the next week,
\nwe debated, this lawyer or that,
\nand what approach and how would we pay, and why should we pay,
\nwhen this debt was a matter
\nthat didn’t exist?<\/p>\n
All through the week, too, invariably,
\nour attention turned to the nature of debt and who was shaken
\nand who did the shaking.
\nOur better avatars never used the
\nwords “shyster” or “scumbag,”
\nbut we are seldom at our best
\nwhen our enforced seclusion
\nis shattered by forces
\nthat proclaim they can rip our paper worlds
\nand be perfectly justified in so doing
\nand make it appear that
\nat no time
\ndid we ever exist.<\/p>\n
The other morning, both of us at computer screens,
\nmadly searching avenues for pro bono representation –
\ntrue Bahmans –
\nwhen you emit a joyful whoop.
\nBefore I can ask, you hold up your hand,
\nreading the response from
\nthe entity to take us at our paper words and make the bums
\nretreat into the shadows like a recoiled snake.
\nWho knew such a deus ex machina moment could
\nhappen, all while the world had supposedly shut down, and with it
\nthe summons no one skimming the public teat
\nhas to prove the right to exist?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We never asked for the multiple overtures from the Bahman bums who took none of his creeds to their grasping chest cavities, but there we were, spreading out the adverts masking as letters, all claiming to know exactly the bind we were in and what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63160,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61526\/revisions\/63160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}