My Billionaires

by Bruce Bawer (October 2023)

Dead Father, Alice Neel, 1946

(Upon learning that a writer friend of mine had been left enough money by a fan to buy an apartment in Seattle.)

C.’s Mexique lab produced a pill
That made him rich. He loved my quill.
But when I learned of his deceso
He hadn’t left me a single peso.

In letters from his Left Bank flat
Packed with Picassos, J. gushed that
My work was like a fine bijou.
He died. I didn’t get a sou.

G.’s family owned a merchant fleet.
He thought my poetry such a feat
That he had me tutor him by phone—
Me in Oslo, him alone
In his office high above the herd
At Park Avenue and 43rd.
Yet when it finally was his time,
I didn’t inherit a goddamn dime.

But guess what? When I did go bust
And rich folks whom I’d come to trust
Showed me the door, I got a loaner
Of several hundred thousand kroner
From an ordinary wage-slave friend.

Moral: you never know who’ll lend
The dough that keeps you off the street
And helps you get back on your feet.

So be buds with a billionaire!
But just ’cause he’s got tons to spare,
Be wise, be sensible, beware:
Don’t ever expect to be his heir.

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Bruce Bawer is the author of several books. An American writer, he has lived in Norway for over two decades.

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