The Money Game

The man with the guitar

Sang a song for us on the sidewalk

    He started off his song by slowly plucking at a few strings

And

   I was gripped 

It was a catchy tune, with dark feelings to it

   He started to slap on his guitar, creating another beat

He plucked and slapped and the dark beautiful song started to bloom

   Then he started to sing 

His voice was deep and gravelly 

   You could tell he sang with his soul

He felt every lyric he sang

   And I felt them too

It was a song about the old money game

   And how it is insane to play

But how we all get caught in it

   We get tricked into playing

He sang that we blame and blame and blame

  But we are all part of the same money game

He sings about what America has become

  This land is one big power grab

 A capitalist beast gnawing off it’s own hands

Greed makes you man

   And lust is used to gain trust

A chick with a big rack 

Selling us a cheeseburger that’ll give us a heart-attack

   Supply and demand, man

Create a supply

    And then make a demand, man

Advertise to sell

   Even if you have to sell the fire in hell

Someone will need it not to freeze to death tonight 

So you might as well sell hell to the poor

Because you still need

More 

The crowd around us has grown. Now there are about twenty of us on the sidewalk listening to his song. 

   He stops singing and starts talking 

Telling is that life is like Monopoly

 Gain some capital and buy property

  Then, with just his hand thumping against his guitar

 He started to rap

Expand, man

   Supply and demand

We need more and more and more

  Start a business and sell your soul to grow and grow and grow

We need a new home

   Expand, expand, expand

Buy land

   A few kids who only know the word ‘mine’

We are walking talking landmines

   Lost our souls to time

We are cursed

Narcissist at birth

  Dollar bills behind the eyes

  A system we fall into full of lies

Freedom for what?

For heatespeech?

For another person to impeach?

Freedom so we can be racists?

Tsk tsk tsk

This isn’t what freedom meant

He brings back in the guitar, plucking at a few strings again, and singing the final few lines. 

These days

   Life is just a money game

And it’s completely insane 

  But 

Somehow

   Even though we know its evil

We still have to play

. . . And then, with his head down, as if he was embarrassed, he stuck out a jar for us to put some money in. 

                       I gave him three bucks because it was a pretty good song. 

Later on in the day, I remember that my card got declined at the 7/11 this morning, and now I wish I had never fallen for his trick.

That sneaky sonofabitch really got me . . . Oh well, I guess that's how the money game goes some days.