Dave Bonta's short poem looks at the economic "system" we live inside and finds it a bit unhinged. It opens with a quiet, almost eerie image: workplaces that "hum with want of money." The hum sounds like machinery, but it is also a kind of collective craving, as if need itself were the thing powering the buildings.
The middle lines turn darker. "Our design for destruction" suggests that the system was built by us, on purpose or at least by habit, and that it "bled the present" dry. The present is drained of life, worse than "any noon," which hints at the harshest, brightest part of the day. The speaker seems to feel weary and implicated, using "we" rather than pointing the finger elsewhere.
The ending is wry and unsettling. Saying we have done "little worse than the mad" sounds like a shrug, a way of excusing ourselves, yet it also implies that our ordinary, respectable behavior is close to madness. The mood is cold, resigned, and quietly accusing.