Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Jonesing for Alternative Currencies

I've been thirsting to burst your bubble since
I heard the low-down we may be over-
supplied with a green-backed bird called Money,
that trollop spread-wide by aliases

A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound
A buck or a pound, a buck or a pound


And to layman's ears unlearned in the fine-
tuned registers of glib-tongued financiers,
it may ring up as reason to cheer with
no tinkling of trouble, but if Money

Is all that makes the world go around
that clinking, clanking sound
(they do say)

She sings, clangs a bit hollow when she clings
too heavy in alms of poorly wrung hands,
so a well-heeled sit 'n spin'll turn us about
to the golden gap beams of banker's mouth

For Money makes the world go around
The world go around, the world go around


And will till johns who hold little put less
stock in the tart pitches of slick-macking
daddy Street with his tricky fat pay backs
for the ounce of love he's flouncing to sell.

6 comments:

Jenny said...

I imagine the sounds of coins in the background: "that clinking, clanking sound". There is a spinning feel here too. I admire your talent for creating murmuring hypnotic undertones.

human being said...

echoing dear Jenny, i was really amazed by how sound and motion were thematically worked in this poem...

think the two elements presented in these two lines provide us with an answer to the question asked in this beautiful work:

And to layman's ears unlearned in the fine-
tuned registers of glib-tongued financiers

this is all a game of power... won by those who know over those who do not...

awareness is all!

thanks for the light...


ps. liked that hidden cutting pain in the last line...
a pain that wakes up...

Megan Duffy said...

"so a well-heeled sit 'n spin'll turn us about
to the golden gap beams of banker's mouth "

Really nice sound in this. A fierce poem.

Jeremy Blomberg said...

great poem...the words and sounds and rhythm felt perfect together and i especially enjoyed the italic breaks in between the stanzas that seemed to bring out the mindless thoughts or chants we so often hear...ahhh capitalism.

Anders Enochsson said...

Oh, I heard the chanting of our money making clerics. I don’t mean this in a cynical way, but it seems like we people always need some kind of religion which encompasses our lives.

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the poem.

Francis Scudellari said...

@Jenny The clinking, clanking bits I owe to Cabaret, and I tried to match its sound in the rest of the lines. I may have gotten carried away with its music though :).

@hb I wish we lived in a world where there weren't such power games, but that's unfortunately not the case, so awareness is the only alternative.

@Megan I've been getting a little too caught up in social commentary these days, which is where the fierceness comes from.

@Sean The italics are lines from the musical Cabaret, which if you've heard them sung do have a chanting quality. I think they give the rest of the poem a little space to breathe.

@Ande Economics can be a bit of a religion too, especially here in the US, where the market is often treated like a God.