Post-Climacteric
- The Money System
There’s no inherent value in
the money system.—To begin,
one president’s much like the next
and murder is its own pretext.
- Directive
Wander all day unaware
of what you want, or even care
to want at all, but don’t complain
the world away—or back again.
- Make-Up
Her make-up makes up money, makes
up all and everything, it takes
her time lines and tear tracks away
each and every Money Day.
- Rogaine
Old men young, so young men then
pretend to live their lives again.
Banker Crookshanks thinks to be
a myth of youthful potency!
- Political Science
To shock the world the neo-libs
slicked with blood their lobster bibs.
Freedom’s one thing, so is law,
but money—well, some like it raw.
- Community Policing
I need a heart to have and hold.
Do you possess a heart of gold?
I said that to a cop today.
He said, Stay clear, you—step away.
- Inside Track
Take the avaricious train:
what you venture, that you’ll gain.
Sleep in some hotel somewhere—
anywhere—it’s better there.
- Hazel Wand
Aengus found but little out
when he went off to catch a trout.
Little, though, was everything:
a sun, a moon, a song—to sing.
- Cassio
Iago says put money in
thy purse, good friend, and think no sin
is it that with your money you’ll
dispatch some earnest, heart-struck fool.
- Zombies
The view from there, the view from here,
would shock to silence Shaky-speare:
legions of the walking dead
and nothing pentametric said.
- Bourgeois
I have to say, a fresh croissant
is only what I think I want.
What other deep down I desire
is to consume this place with fire.
- Foreclosures
Victims will decline to dust
having said, In God We Trust.
C.O.D.—Return to Sender.
Cost is all in legal tender.
- The Gift
You’ve got it now. You mean it—now!
You’ve wanted it no matter how:
a world that knows its own downfall
and all things else—well, not at all.
- Ars Poetica
Nothing much remains to say,
but you’ll say it anyway:
find a trope how to, forsooth,
insinuate a dirty truth.
About the Poet
Terence Culleton has published several collections of formally crafted narrative and lyric poems, including A Communion of Saints (2011) and Eternal Life (2015), both with Anaphora Literary Press. His most recent book, A Tree and Gone, just out this past spring through Future Cycle Press, is a collection of fifty-four formal English sonnets, many of which have appeared in journals and anthologies and/or been short-listed in sonnet contests. A multiple Pushcart nominee, Mr. Culleton has had several pieces featured on NPR, as well as various TV programs, and he reads widely throughout the Philadelphia and New York areas.