Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Starting to disintegrate, a black beetle sitting in my back pocket, a speed hump where the money flow halts – the buck stops here. A lump of fake leather – its edges starting to fray, revealing a cardboard interior, dull and lifeless like my bank balance. A plastic window traps a license inside and several business cards including mine and some from other folks I’ve met recently that have not been transferred to the vision board for later reference and networking.  Bills in vagabond states drift like icebergs  in the chasm within, the thin crevasse that holds wafers of currency, the dockets of exchange that we assign worth and value to. Slotted vents hold rows of plastic with raised numbers, bank cards, credit cards and health care are a rainbow of colour filtering down its inside. 

At the bakers I pull out the hand grenade from my back pocket and remove the money that explodes into the register, with the slip and slide of  a plastic draw it’s consumed and disappears down the throat of the money eating beast called the economy, It seems to be stalking me, I am the prey of this ‘economy’. It sneaks into my bank account when I’m not looking and forages around for scraps, a bank fee, a b-pay, a wire transfer – it knows it’s all there and then carries it away, but to where I wonder? To the big maggoty pile of capital somewhere in the center of the earth – or do they send it into space in a holding pattern, whatever happens I know when I slip the plastic token into the hole in the wall, there’s hardly anything left for the withdrawal. I might as well try to withdraw the pollution from the air for all the wealth that’s waiting there. and somehow my wallet feels just a little lighter- and maybe it needs a diet – maybe I could try a few cards, clean out the pockets give it a makeover, polish it up get it looking spectacular again, but the dog eared cardboard doesn’t seem to be interested.

Walking down the street in foreign cities or climes, a paranoia arises, this is like my life line, my safety blanket- it isn’t the the passport I care for, it’s the wallet. I Like feeling that lump in my front pocket – I’m cautious, it makes me feel more at peace in a foreign place at least.