Risk & Reward Poem by Charles Malcolm

Life isn't poetic
until you find your head hitting the ceiling
or slamming against the floor.

The problem is
that once it does
you are usually too punch drunk
to wring any meaning
out of the highs
and the lows.

There is a certain beauty
to nine-to-fives
and paying your bills on time,
but it takes a man with a fractured skull
to explain it,
and even after they do
it will never hold a candle
to the gutters or the rafters.

If I didn't truly believe it
I'd be selling you shoes
and saving up for a Vitamix,

but I do,
and I'm not.