Poetry: Poetry for Money

I write poetry to get paid
Some use poetry to get laid.
So they open up a maiden,
Pluck and dump her flower in a basin.

They listen as if they care
Snapping fingers everywhere
But the offering box stays empty,
The crowd is allergic to a levy.

The show is meant to be free,
I ask, who’s the poet gonna be?
And when they mention money
I forget my tools including my simile.

I don’t write poetry for money.
I don’t write poetry, that’s funny.
If i keep my eyes on the prize
What happens when a poet goes blind?

Leonell
============================
Poetry for money.
Tastes something like honey.
A jumble of sweet words,
Like several unsheathed swords.

Poetry to please;
Emotions for lease,
Mixing up the real
With the unreal.

Poetry to win!
Losing is sin!
Winning a currency
Sometimes on forced frequency

Stepping in another’s shoes
Rhythm in another’s blues
Poetry for money costs heart
Where truth and falsehood depart

Hybrid
============================
Poetry sounds sweet,
On the street,
Or the bus stop,
Poet must chop.

Rhyming gets the ladies,
Syllables count tiring levies,
Structures always important,
Forms never be constant.

Slams are competitive, remember,
Wait till poets spit lightning and thunder,
All brothers from another mother,
But sisters of the same father.

Poetry is life, not a name.
You can’t relate? What a shame,
“Nice performance, that was deep”
Money you no give, just smiles to keep.

Hijab Gurl
=============================
The words that are bought with sleep
The windows of pages they have to peep
To mould eyes into a telescope,
To wrap the narrow mind beyond its scope.

Cheers have been the pay,
This bad business don tay.
For reasons that are always lame,
But the hearts have held the love, all the same.

While performing, the audience’s faces look like a cheque
But the applauds render the cheque a wreck.
Yet poets walk on words and poems are born,
Forging till new frontiers are torn.

A poem for cash,
Less? The bargain is a trash.
Weave your way through words to the bank.
Cash as you can to refill the tank

Tee2emm
=============================
Empty hearts
Make for good carts
With room enough to fill
with proceeds from a mill

These hearts sometimes feel
The need to get a good meal
But without a nickel or a dime
They’ll have to take comfort in time

Maybe a day will come
When dimes will fill the drum
That day a song will come forth
Not like the empty barrel from the north

Empty hearts sometimes fill with words
Often times they are like swords
Other times they are beautiful poetry
If only their pockets weren’t so empty

Jennifer Dafwat
==============================
When father returned from the war,
mother wept writing about the gore!
The loss, the madness, the sheer meaninglessness!
I grew older, maybe dumber, cos I cared less.

Flowing through their veins,
down to the tip of his pens
to the edges of her lips,
love will not be restrained.

God stands accused!
Our eyes shooting darts at the sky!
Give us dignity, give us answers, reason, something!
Why are we refused, why treat us like outcasts, gangsters, dead stars?

Our children live for bread!
Our aged die for want!
Prophets now fill their pockets!
In pursuit of the Nigeria prize, poets scribble for money!

OracLe
====================================
No be to dey carry holy words
dey come form flashiness like 4 fords.
Person need to dey make him money
with that poetry wey him dey tell him Bunny.

Words could be life
as a husband finds a wife.
Sometimes it needs to be motivated
so the listener’s spirit can be elevated.

No be to dey chop only book
person need get the spoon to fit cook.
Na by all that small small offering
we dey take wipe away awa suffering.

Sometimes our lives become an offering plate.
Only applauses enter, critics are never late.
Money never visits, she’s never allowed.
Poets need the money. I’m shouting this aloud!

Ruddapoet
============================
Poetry for the money.
Ink spilling honey.
A monger of words.
Every broken sweat it awards.

Reaping the essence of every expression.
Benjamin suppressed me to depression.
Caging me and posing as my pimp,
Poetry delivered me in a limp.

Pay a sum and I’ll rhyme it.
Give you a thought to wrestle with.
Lines like stack of bills,
Benjamin cannot determine what my pen spills.

It’s Kool if my hobby pays,
But not when every cent preys.
The orgasmic feeling means more to me,
Cause it sets my soul free.

Vera
================================
Just a dollar bill.
Trying to keep it still.
Just a dollar bill,
In contempt with my will.

Similes and metaphors.
Little or less endeavours.
Airplaned words,
Contemporary to what the pen affords.

For sale to be sold.
More less then we mould.
Little can be told,
About that which is for sale to be sold.

Trying to keep it still.
Just a dollar bill
Penniless and real.
Words not sale, and that’s the deal.

Hypermind
================================
Poetry for money
Will make mama happy
I got to pay the bills
With my purple skills

Poetry for money was never my thought
Until, they said this poet has a lot
I bagged a crown
When I knew Mr Brown

Poetry for money became my will
Half a million or you runt a deal
I taught my pen to kill
It served Kings and Authors wished they steal.

Poetry for money bought me a ride
Took me to Paris, far and wide
Gave me clothes in costly design
Influenced a 9-5 to resign

Rachel Charles