Is dis culture yours, cause it is not mine
Money culture who?
Money culture what?
Money culture thrives where luv is not,
Dem can buy an sell till dem gu to Hell
Dem can tax de wisher at de wishing well,
Now Frankenstein cum fe privatise
Empire fools, get penny wise.
Every government will tek what dem can get
Every government is quick to feget
Every government can mek money by killing
Every government luvs money, no kidding,
But money is paper an paper will burn
So tink about trees as yu earn,
It could do good but it does more bad
Money is fake and
You've been had.
benjamin zephaniah, City Psalms, 1992 (the author’s spelling is preserved)
The coin speaks.
|
Singers sing for coin: but I, Struck in Rome's last agony, Shut the lips of Melody. Many years my thin white face Peered in every market-place At the Doomed Imperial Race. Warmed against and worn between Hearts uncleansed and hands unclean, – What is there I have not seen? Not an Empire dazed and old, – Smitten blind and stricken cold, – Bartering her sons for gold;
|
Not the Plebs her rulers please From the public treasuries With the bread and circuses; Not the hard-won fields restored, At the egregious Senate's word, To the savage and the sword; Not the People's Godlike voice As it welcomes or destroys Month-old idols of its choice; Not the legions they disband, Not the oarless ships unmanned, Not the ruin of the land, These I know and understand |
|
Kipling wrote this poem on the fly-leaf of Sir Charles Oman's copy of Puck of Pook's Hiil, and dated it 'June 1907'. Oman, the historian, was also a distinguished numismatist. rudyaud kipling, 1907 | |
The hardship of accounting.
Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent.
robert frost, as 'Money', Poetry, April 1936;
in A Further Range, 1936
The millionaire.
When you enquire of millionaires
Their candid personal impressions
Of an existence such as theirs,
They emphasize the woes, the cares,
Of those with great possessions;
They prove, with chapter and with verse,
That Money is a Perfect Curse.
But though with passion they maintain
(And seem to have no doubt about it)
That lucre is but dross, and vain,
This truth does not appear so plain
To those who are without it.
Wealth's a delusion, if you will,
But Poverty is trickier still!
With money, so they all profess –
And I've no wish to beg the question –
One cannot purchase Happiness
Or Peace of Mind, or yet Success,
Or a robust digestion;
But one can buy a good cigar
And plovers' eggs and caviare!
harry graham, The World's Workers, 1928
Part III.
Keys unit 1.
Pre-reading tasks:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|