That Tangible, Palpable, Fungible Thing

[AuntShecky]

That Tangible, Palpable, Fungible Thing

Heroes in profile demand respect, and their metal
is supposed to mint clean,
“hard, cold cash” -- carelessly strewn
into fountains where their wet backs sometime
wistfully sparkle, more often corrode. Or holding
them, your hands tend to sweat and assume
an odd aroma. When you spot a coin
on the street -- on filthy sidewalks next to pigeon
droppings and old wads of gum - you've got to swallow
your disgust before picking it up.

The folding kind’s got a better cachet, despite
its stain of the “nouveau” about it, plus
the contradiction of becoming passé, not to
mention that funny smell again. You never can
open your wallet without a sense
of trepidation. The bills congregate,
sticking together like thieves, crackling
their protest at an all sales final exchange.

The worst kind is the kind you can't see,
the kind that works its dark power
magically, invisibly changing shape,
shifting from account to account,
deriving fortunes, building ruin.
You can't see it, can't see its movement,
and very seldom can trace its map
on paper – but it’s there, it’s real.

So the next time some cheerful
glad-hander expansively crows that
money is no “object,”
tell him he’s lying.

[firefangled]

This has a serious bite to it, Auntie, but it was fun to read. I really enjoyed your images of money.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, Firefangled. The origin of the piece is my constant irritation with those who attribute so much importance to these inanimate "things." Yeah, I know, "money makes the world go round, blah-blah-blah."

Also, since this is an opportunity to "'splain": I generally try to avoid one-word lines, so the word "swallow" in line 9 is supposed to follow the "to" in the previous line. (I have a beautiful old edition of nineteenth century poetry, but the poems are all typeset into single columns, so the original lines have similiar unintended breaks. Shelley and Swinburne must be a-turnin' in their graves!)

[PrinceMyshkin]

After the power throughout this, I felt the ending was somewhat tepid, that it needed (deserved) something much more emphatic and possibly a touch rude!

But I especially loved these lines:


You never can
open your wallet without a sense
of trepidation. The bills congregate,
sticking together like thieves, crackling
their protest at an all sales final exchange.

The worst kind is the kind you can't see,
the kind that works its dark power
magically, invisibly changing shape,
shifting from account to account,
deriving fortunes, building ruin.
You can't see it, can't see its movement,
and very seldom can trace its map
on paper – but it’s there, it’s real.

[AuntShecky]

It might be a coincidence, Prince, that you posted a reply to this thing, as I was actually thinking about you when I wrote this thing. I said to myself, "Hey, this is like Prince's style of poetry." Remember what Fred Allen said: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

If the last couple of lines struck you as "rude," well, that was the intention, although I never, ever set out to offend anyone. The aim was to express irritation -- anger almost - at the pervasive obsession with filthy lucre, the mean green, or my favorite P.G. Wodehouse description, "oil de palm."

Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It might be a coincidence, Prince, that you posted a reply to this thing, as I was actually thinking about you when I wrote this thing. I said to myself, "Hey, this is like Prince's style of poetry." Remember what Fred Allen said: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

If the last couple of lines struck you as "rude," well, that was the intention, although I never, ever set out to offend anyone. The aim was to express irritation -- anger almost - at the pervasive obsession with filthy lucre, the mean green, or my favorite P.G. Wodehouse description, "oil de palm."

Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated.

no, no - you misread my initial comment. I felt that the last two lines were NOT rude at all but, rather, too mild, too civilized. I felt that what was needed was the equivalent of FY!