Poetry.

MONEY.

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:

'Why do you let me lie here wastefully?

I am all you never had of goods and sex.

You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:

They certainly don't keep it upstairs.

By now they've a second house and car and wife:

Clearly money has something to do with life.

– In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire:

You can't put off being young until you retire,

And however you bank your screw, the money you save

Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It's like looking down

From long french windows at a provincial town,

The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad

In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

philip larxin, High Windows, 1974

MONEY.

In order to be able to live on the right side of the law. To always use his own name and phone number. To go bail for a friend and not give a damn if the	Buy drugs when he wants. Buy a car. If it breaks down, repair it. Or else buy another. See that boat? He might buy one just like it.
friend skips town. Hope, in fact, she does. To give some money to his mother. And to his children and their mother. Not save it. He wants to use it up before it's gone. Buy clothes with it. Pay the rent and utilities. Buy food, and then some. Go out for dinner when he feels like it. And it's okay to order anything off the menu!	And sail it around the Horn, looking for company. He knows a girl in Porto Alegre who'd love to see him in his own boat, sails full, turn into the harbor for her. A fellow who could afford to come all this way to see her. Just because he liked the sound of her laughter, and the way she swings her hair.
raymond carver, In a Marine Light: Selected Poems, 1987

MONEY.

Money is a kind of poetry.

Wallace Stevens

Money, the long green, cash, stash, rhino, jack or just plain dough. Chock it up, fork it over, shell it out. Watch it burn holes through pockets. To be made of it! To have it to burn! Greenbacks, double eagles, megabucks and Ginnie Maes.	It greases the palm, feathers a nest, holds heads above water, makes both ends meet. Money breeds money. Gathering interest, compounding daily. Always in circulation. Money. You don't know where it's been, but you put it where your mouth is. And it talks.
dana gioia, The Lions of Winter, 1991

MONEY.

(rant)

Money meks a dream become reality

Money meks real life like a fantasy

Money has a habit of going to de head

I have some fe a rainy day underneath me bed,

Money problems mek it hard fe relax

Money meks it difficult fe get down to de facts

Money meks yu worship vanity an lies

Money is a drug wid legal eyes

Economists cum

Economists go

Yu try controlling yu cash flow

Food cost loads

House prices soar

An de Rich people try to dress like de Poor,

Nobody really understands de interest rate

When dere is interest den its all too late,

We cherish education

But how much do we pay?

Yu can't buy Race Relations or afford a holiday

Money can't mek yu happy, yu happiness is paper thin

When yu are lonely yu will invite yu poor friends in.

Now dem sey is money culture time