The Going Rate

Are you happy yet?
I've lost myself
in your corporate modifications
and marketing manipulations.
I'm writing these lines
between spurts of paperwork,
and just last week the Marlboro Man
rode up on a starved and beaten mare
to repossess my last lung.
I can't make my Escalade payment either,
'cause no one wants these greenbacks anymore,
and all the gold's long gone.
Everyone wants you to pay in slugs:
two .06's for a bottle of water,
a .32 for a pound of flesh.
.22's are the easiest to come by,
and you can still get a blowjob
and a cup of coffee
from and aging transvestite
for two .9's and a .45.
You get your change
in buckshot around here,
right before the store clerks
mug you, rape you,
and remove your fillings
with a good pair of pliers.
We all drink blood and oil now,
and the price of gas is up
to 12 scalps per gallon,
unless you happen
to have a full clip,
then everything's free, baby.
No one wants you to spend
your cash too quick.
They want it to sit for a while,
fester and weigh down on your soul
before you fling it in someone
else's direction, aiming
for that soft spot in their wallet,
in their brain.
It gives the Wallstreet Warchiefs a chance
to skim a few more rounds off the top,
to be sent off to Cuba, or Iraq, or Israel,
to finance the next waritme
profit margin.