I Am Broke-Busted

My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I'm busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I'm busted
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The county's gonna haul my belongings away cause I'm busted.
Ray Charles

When I woke up
This morning
I awoke
Broke-busted
As in
I ain’t got
No mo money honey
The cupboard is dry
And there ain’t
No food in the frig neither

How did I get to be
So broke-busted
Just two days
Before pay day?
That’s easy baby
Cause I don
Spent all of my
Money
Gambling at the
Racetrack and
Betting on the ponies
So sue me!

And now I have rent to pay
And a stomach to feed
And bills to pay
And I am down to counting
All the loose change
In my pants pockets and
In the loose change jar
That I keep for emergencies
But I must have
Already raided
The loose change jar
Because the jar is empty

So I have no food to eat
And I can’t go back to sleep
And I have to get up and
Get dressed and somehow
Get my ass to work
Whether or not
I happen to be
Broke-busted or not

No one wants
To hear my hard luck story
Even if I had
Someone to tell it to
Seems everyone these days
Has a hard luck story
Of their own

Every down on his luck bum
In my neighborhood
Seems to have me pegged
For a chump or
A soft touch
Hey mister
I am homeless
Can you help me get on the bus?
Hey mister
I am homeless
Can you help me get a bite to eat?
What do I look like
A frigging walking
Wells Fargo
ATM machine?

So I get fed up
With all the bums
And when I get fed up
I tend to get nasty
“If you’re homeless
What do you need
To get on the bus for?
It’s not like you have
Someplace to go!”

But now the proverbial shoe
Is on the other proverbial foot
And I’m the one who is
Broke-busted
So who am I going to tap
For a soft loan
To tide me over
Until pay day?

I hate not having money
I hate being working class poor
I hate the daily struggle
Just to have to put
Food on the table and
To keep a roof
Over my head

But do I really want to join
The army of homeless bums
That shuffle along
All day long
From bum stop to bum stop
With no place to call home
Begging for handouts
Stinking of my own
Piss and shit?
Hell no!
Anything but that!

So I drag my butt
Out of bed
Throw on some
Old clothes and
Tell my complaining
Kit cat that
She has to wait until
Payday
Just like me
She doesn’t like it
And she lets me know it

Somehow I manage to
Find a loose token
That gets me a ride
On the 59 bus

All the seats are taken
(What else is new?)
I manage to find
A piece of bus
To hang on to
And I take a look around
At my fellow commuters
And I see all the other
Wage slaves
With their blank stares
And stony poker faces
And I know
That I am just like them
And that knowledge
Doesn’t make me
Feel any better
About myself or
About my situation

I get off the bus
At the terminal
Where I have to run
The usual gauntlet
Of the shiftless and
The homeless
All of them
With their hands out
“Not today, sorry.”
“I don’t have any change.”
“Piss off!”
“Get lost!”
“Eat shit and die.”
“Fuck you and the horse
You rode in on!”

Today’s newspaper headline reads
“Four Youths Held In Slaying
Of Pizza Delivery Man”
Yeah that about
Sums it up

I can just tell
It’s going to be
Another swell day
Here in the
City of Brotherly Love

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2012