Budgetary Matters Poem by Hans Ostrom

Budgetary Matters

The spreadsheet is all before you. The farther

left you travel, the more desirable things become.

Indeed the items named seem not just necessary

but inevitable, prophesied. As you travel toward

the reckoning right hand of calculation, the less

possible things seem. You think of Zeno's Paradox.

You begin to feel an urge to save rubber-bands

and bits of string, to eat left-overs and sew

your own clothes. When you finally arrive

in the severe, humorless zone of the numbers-column,

you then descend toward the hell of the Bottom Line,

which is, oddly enough, often represented by two lines.

At that line, expenses devour entrails of income.

Accountants costumed in gray feathers perform

a ghastly arithmetical dance. You hear someone

mumble, 'Nothing we can afford is worth doing, '

to which you respond, 'Nothing worth doing

is quantifiable.' You stand up and demand

to know the origin of money. You are forcibly

exported from the room. As you depart, you

hear someone say, 'I think we just found

some extra money in the budget.'


Copyright 2008 Hans Ostrom