A Gentleman Of Leisure Poem by michael spangenberg

Silky said: The term is pimp, but I don't use it
I'm a professional gentleman of leisure
And I make more money than my father
more even than the president.

Silky's a Big City pimp with 3 ho's, street-smart
Working girls finding glamour in their simple lives
And staying with him despite their jealousies
The burden of prostitution-and occasional beatings.

Not every gentleman of leisure's a pimp, however,
Back in 1998, bored to tears by his job,23 year poet
Arthur Hodgkinsons lay for hours and hours on his bed
And dreamed of starting a magazine called The lazybone.

There was a time that true gentlemen were
Constitutionally indolent men, staying far away
From mundane Calvinistic trade, and engaging
In heroic lives as warrior or poet-philosopher.

Issuing literature for loafers, telling all the truth
The Emily Dickinson way, with a slant; since they
Know the truth's too bright for our infirm delight
It must dazzle gradually - or every man be blind.

Financially independent the bon vivant stayed free
From jobs and debt, cursed the 7: 30AM alarm clock
Sacked from his job, he started to wander towards a
World of idle play and full-time leisure.

Ran a bohemian café in good-for-Notting-Hill, London
Teaching useless stuff like calligraphy, grammar
Ukulele, the ideas of Plato, in convivial surroundings with
Other malingerer warriors and philosophers.

Footnote - Credit where credit's due: http: //idler.co.uk, and THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998,1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951,1955,1979,1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.