Attaching to our host more hope
than having none is worth, our heads
turn nothing into gold we can’t
spend and it hurts, this not knowing
how to go about letting down
those who depend on us the most

as if wealth was a fiction most
often lived out, and never down,
by those of us for whom knowing
nothing is a new form of hope,
and affection a joke we can’t
help but let punch into our heads

these lines we give no credit, heads
and executives yet we can’t
make better company, or hope
to express better than this most
lamentable mess, that knowing
too much about not slowing down

renders living worthless, waters down
with misery gardens knowing
winter springs to inaction most
things our warmth was attracting, heads
past love and abandons all hope
at those gates calling us home, can’t

slow now or stall when we fall, can’t
go more than a day before hope
fades fast and paying no heed heads
nowhere this hard cash can calm down,
or cool, the cruel tempers most
men only read about, knowing

the news leaves out what’s worth knowing
until the article ends, most
details embellished, they’ll say, down
to the size of his gun, ‘You can’t
be serious,’ they’ll shake their heads,
yet we’ve been hostages to hope

and have lived, guests in his house, hope
taught to us again that what can’t
be bought must be earned or turned down.