Selected Poems

from Daily Horoscope

from The Gods of Winter

from Interrogations at Noon

 

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.

 

 

from The Gods of Winter
© 1991 Dana Gioia

© 2001 Dana Gioia unless otherwise noted.
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