Daily poem
An everyday experience treated with a certain philosophical deftness. Neil Powell is a freelance writer who lives in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. His Collected Poems, from which this one comes, are published by Carcanet at #8.95.
BEYOND MY MEANS
By Neil Powell
I gather that I live beyond my means.
'DR', the statement stutters: short for 'drat',
I'd like to think, or maybe even 'drunk'.
No such luck: the message, clear enough,
Is more-diluted special-offer scotch,
The twelve-year-old malt banished to the past.
Outside, the mortgaged world is freezing hard,
And I at last ironically a 'member'
Of a Building Society! Will it help or matter
That this one has a poet on its board?
By all accounts, our poems will be worth
As little as our love, less than our shares.
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