Poems for Money, and No Kicks for Free


Verse 1
The air smells of printer’s ink and cold coffee,
and the page stares back like a shopfront window
where the mannequins wear my metaphors,
price tags swinging from their wrists.

I used to think the words were a kind of weather —
blowing in from nowhere,
soaking me through for the sheer joy of it.
Now they arrive in invoices,
in neat little deadlines,
in the voice of an editor who says love the piece,
can you make it more clickable?

Chorus 1
Poems for money, no kicks for free,
pay up for the rhythm, pay up for the key.
Every verse on the table, every rhyme on display —
you want the words, you’ve got to pay.


Verse 2
Out there, the buskers still play for coins and kisses,
but in here it’s all contracts and clauses,
the slow bleed of the soul into a spreadsheet.
The kicks aren’t free anymore —
they’re itemised, taxed,
and filed under miscellaneous inspiration.

Chorus 2
Ain’t no freebies in this poetry game,
each line’s got a price, each stanza a name.
Coins in the jar if you want that fire —
art costs sweat, and sweat ain’t hire‑by‑the‑hour.


Verse 3
Still, I keep at it.
Because sometimes, between the brief and the bill,
a line will slip the leash —
a wild‑eyed thing that doesn’t care who’s paying,
that runs straight for the horizon,
dragging me with it,
reminding me why I ever opened my mouth
in the first place.

Chorus 3
No kicks for free, no muse on loan,
these words are minted, stamped in stone.
If you want the song, you cover the fee —
poems for money, for the world to see.


Outro – Loop & Fade
Poems for money, no kicks for free,
pay up for the rhythm, pay up for the key.
Ain’t no freebies in this poetry game,
each line’s got a price, each stanza a name.
No kicks for free, no muse on loan,
these words are minted, stamped in stone.
Poems for money, for the world to see —
say it with me now, no kicks for free.









.