MONEY – Thoughts for a Chancellor

The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer has just pronounced on the future of the country in times when the majority of the population find themselves in considerably strained financial circumstances . Perhaps a few thoughts occasioned by a reading which I quote from from: ‘The Funny Side – 101 Humorous Poems’ – edited with an introduction by Wendy Cope, will strike a chord with many of us . . .

It is from the American poet, Richard Willard Armour (July 15, 1906 – February 28, 1989)

That money talks

I won’t deny.

I heard it once,

It said, “Goodbye”.

Richard Armour also once wrote: . . . “Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.“

GOING CASHLESS

‘Britain on course to become cashless society ‘within the next 10 years’.

Article published in the Daily Telegraph … 19 February 2020

 

GOING CASHLESS

 

What would we do without our chequebooks?
Yes, What would we do without our cheques?
What would we do without our chequebooks?
Yet one more deprivation  sent to vex.

What would we do without our cash cards?
And, What would we do without our coins?
What would we do without our cash cards?
We’d feel it in our purses and our loins.

What would we do without our pence?
Yes, what would we do without small change?
What would we do without our coppers?
Our lives would be so penniless and strange.

What would we do without our fivers?
Yes, What would we do without our fives?
What would we do without our fivers?
I doubt if any one of us survives.

What would we do without our tenners?
Yes, What would we do without our notes?
What would we do without our tenners?
No cash, no cheques,  no fiscal  anecdotes.

What would we do without our chequebooks?
Yes, What would we do without our cheques?
What would we do without our chequebooks?
Yet one more deprivation sent to vex.

WHB   …  ©

 

WILL I DO?

Photo by ramtin ak on Pexels.com

 

‘Single man with toilet paper seeks woman with hand sanitizer for good clean fun.’

I have paper for the loo
Hand sanitiser too
Now I’m looking for a mate, Will I do?

I have headache pills galore
You will never need for more
Now I’m looking for a mate, Will I do?

I am well stocked up with food,
And I’m always in the mood,
Now I’m looking for a mate, Will I do?

I have wads and wads of money
I’d give you all you need, my honey,
Now I’m looking for a mate, Will I do?

I have the newest mobile phones
All the latest fads and clones
Now I’m looking for a mate, Will I do?

I’ve a sumptuous country mansion
And I’m craving for expansion,
Now I’m looking for a mate, Will I do?

So if you too are looking,
And especially good at cooking
Then I’m your man, yes I’m your man, Will I do?

 

©  …..  WHB

 

The Evils Of Money

 

THE EVILS OF MONEY

 

Or … as Chaucer would have said …
‘Radix malorum est cupiditas.’

Give me more –
I’ll spend it
Take it away –
I’m stressed.
Plenty by far –
I’ll lend it.
Show it off –
You’re impressed.

When lucre
becomes an obsession
Then life
Goes out of the door;
When penury
hits with depression,
I cry out –
What else is life for?

It’s not having
That is the obsession
It’s Loss that
Has brought on this fear.
What has caused my affliction,
My spirit’s constriction,
This stifling addiction,
and without contradiction,
It is knowing that now,
Somewhere and somehow,
I’ve breached my limit,
Dismantled my spirit.

For to my great cost
I have completely lost
That winning ticket.
For, Jiminy Cricket,
I know now I can’t win it.

I’ll never be sane
Not ever again
For I never will find
or retrieve peace of mind
That small slip of paper
That fortune creator
That millionaire-maker
That few extra quid
That from me was hid.
I by fate was denied
‘Agonistes’ I cried.

Oh. Let me now lie
Where the poor people lie
And let it be said,
‘He was grossly misled.’

May it say on my grave
‘He, to lucre a slave,
by its loss was enraged.
He’d rather be dead
Without his Mercedes,
Just pushing up daisies
In the gardens of Hades.’

 

 

Art On The Rack

tall and slender
thin and lean
what do such racked
such skeletal
figures mean

imagination extended
perception broadened
brought to brush and canvas
stone and chisel
bronze and rasp
unique reality
given expression
in the artist’s eye
and distorted vision

el greco
modigliani
giacometti
parmagianino

artistic differences
paralleled
in paint and bronze

fashion’s fad
now continued
on the catwalk

do my eyes
deceive me
with beauty
in the eye of the bewildered
creating
or perhaps following
fashion

emaciated
underfed
and stretched out models
tapered
taut
and elongated
in the artist’s vision

paraded to their public
asked to accept
an interpretation
allowing retrieval
of a larger truth

thus to become
stricken and striated
darlings
of a new generation

fêted now
as great and good
but fated still
to be misunderstood

---

The images at the top are, from left to right  . . .
El Greco:  ‘St.John The Baptist’ – c.1600; Oil on Canvas
Giacometti:  ‘Walking Man’ – 1960; Bronze
Modigliani: ‘Lunia Czechowska in Black’ – 1919; Oil on canvas
Parmagianino: ‘Madonna With Long Neck’
The bottom picture is of ‘Catwalk models’ – from Pinterest.

 

MONEY

Design … WHB – 2017

(Poem No.32 of my favourite short poems)

MONEY

That money talks

I won’t deny.

I heard it once,

It said, “Goodbye”.

By Richard Armour

(Quoted from: ‘The Funny Side – 101 Humorous Poems – edited with an introduction by Wendy Cope.)

Richard Willard Armour (July 15, 1906 – February 28, 1989) was an American poet and author who wrote more than 65 books.   Two of his best-known quotations are . . .

Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long,
has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.

 Beauty is only skin deep, and the world is full of thin skinned people.