Money poems
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Inheritance-His
© Audre Lorde
Does an image of return
wealthy and triumphant
warm your chilblained fingers
as you count coins in the Manhattan snow
or is it only Linda
who dreams of home?
Blood Money
© Syl Cheney-Coker
Along the route of this river,
with a little luck, we shall chance upon
What Has Happened To Lulu?
© Charles Causley
What has happened to Lulu, mother?
What has happened to Lu?
There’s nothing in her bed but an old rag-doll
And by its side a shoe.
269. Song-Sweet Tibbie Dunbar
© Robert Burns
O WILT thou go wi’ me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
O wilt thou go wi’ me, sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
Wilt thou ride on a horse, or be drawn in a car,
Or walk by my side, O sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
Hero
© Williams Ian
the hero winsbecause that's what heros do when you spendthe money to buy the DVD of a movie you alreadyknow the ending to, not because you’ve seen it beforebut because you heard from a colleague in HRthat it would make you feel real good after,it was the best thing she’s seen lately, and that’swith her being married and every morning pushing spoonsinto the faces of her two children
so you watch itknowing the only thing that will make you feel goodthis evening is seeing a bare-chested man wail on anotherin a ring and another in a street and another in a ringin slow-mo and the dff dff sounds of the gloves strikingbodies in movies, which don’t sound like bodies for real,not that you’d admit to knowing that,
and the herodoesn’t even look like heroes in the real worldwhich are not the heroes in grade four essays eitherbut like (stay with me) this one time you dropped by a woman’s placeand you were sitting at her kitchen table and she asked youif you wanted anything to drink and she opened the fridgeand you saw through the crack between her bodyand the door only a pitcher of water on the wire shelfin the yellow light—
you want to call her a herobecause she’s surviving with her mouth shutor yourself because you’re so affected must meanyou’re noble
He will tell me later the story of the woman he has been alluding to all day
© Williams Ian
because it takes three hours and gives him the blues badso not now, not now, later, he promises, then falls asleepon my couch, shrugging his upper lip like a horse
Will and Testament
© Isabella Whitney
The Aucthour (though loth to leave the Citie)vpon her Friendes procurement, is constrainedto departe: wherfore (she fayneth as she would die)and maketh her WYLL and Testæment, as foloweth:With large Legacies of such Goods and richeswhich she moste aboundantly hath left behind her:and therof maketh LONDON sole executor to seher Legacies performed
Aunt Chloe
© Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
1.1I remember, well remember,1.2 That dark and dreadful day,1.3When they whispered to me, "Chloe,1.4 Your children's sold away!"
On the Obsolescence of Caphone
© Starnino Carmine
Last heard—with a lovely hiss on the "ph"—August 1982 during an afternoon game of scopaturned nasty. And now, missing alongside it,are hundreds of slogans, shibboleths, small
The Girl from Zlot
© Stallworthy Jon
Four gray walls, and four gray towers Overlook a space of flowers,And the silent isle embowers The Lady of Shalott.
A New Profession
© Seaman Owen
My hopeless boy! when I compare (Claiming a father's right to do so)Your hollow brain, your vacuous air,With all the time, and wealth and care Lavished upon your mental trousseau;
Flight into Reality
© Rowley Rosemarie
Dedicated to the memory of my best friend Georgina, (1942-74)and to her husband Alex Burns and their childrenNulles laides amours ne belles prison -Lord Herbert of Cherbury
The Artist
© Raleigh Walter Alexander
The Artist and his Luckless WifeThey lead a horrid haunted life,Surrounded by the things he's madeThat are not wanted by the trade.
A Satire, in Imitation of the Third of Juvenal
© John Oldham
Though much concern'd to leave my dear old friend,I must however his design commendOf fixing in the country: for were IAs free to choose my residence, as he;The Peak, the Fens, the Hundreds, or Land's End,I would prefer to Fleet Street, or the Strand
A Regular Sort of a Guy
© O'Neill Eugene
He fights where the fighting is thickest And keeps his high honor clean;From finish to start, he is sturdy of heart, Shunning the petty and mean;With his friends in their travail and sorrow, He is ever there to stand by,And hark to their plea, for they all know that he Is a regular sort of a guy
