Spring 2009, Volume 6

Poetry by Richard Harvey

The Game

So me and the nieces were playing this stupid game called Easy Money where you buy properties on the board and when other folks land on your real estate you stick ‘em for as much as you can so your investment increases at your competitor’s expense but we decided to play it differently, so we voted to rob the bank and to squat on any of the properties we wanted to and then to just let each other crash at our respective pads free of charge and then we threw all of the plastic red green and blue houses at each other but we still had a bank to rob, so we did and then we picked the plastic houses out of the carpet because the nieces’ beagle named bagel looked eager to eat them and stepping on them probably would have hurt our feet, so then we created a money bathing ceremony where we poured $500’s, $100’s, $50’s, $20’s, $10’s, $5’s and $1’s on each other and professed our willingness to accept the universe’s abundance and I suppose we broke the rules but the important thing is that we played the game.


BIO:  Richard Harvey is a poet and novelist who lives in Long Beach, California. Many of the poems published in Verdad will be integrated into the plotline of his novel, Soft and Chewy. He recently published a chapbook called Lemonade - Notes To Cancer. He is a 4-year brain cancer survivor. An important part of his healing has been honoring his creative nature by reconnecting with writing. He conducts Healing Through Creativity workshops with cancer support groups and students of all ages. He has a wonderful loving wife, two sons and two dogs; all of them occasionally wander into his poems. He is very grateful to the muse for coming back for frequent visits