MONEY

With the permission of William Joyce




                                                                        MONEY

Money is the last line
of defense
before we hit hatred.
With money we can
still pretend
there is hope.
On Friday we can
still dance
to shitty music
after someone has handed us
our shitty money
for a weeks work
of producing shit.

God bless money !
Our children are coached
to kiss its ass.
And our children
fall asleep
before they are 20.

The hills and valleys too
dream of money
and are scooped into subdivisions
to cradle our childrens' children.
And when the trees are planted
they dream also of money
growing in the fifty feet
of emptiness
between them and the next sapling.

Everywhere in every country
it is money, money, money, money.
Don't you dare ask
anyone to sing a good song.
Money strangles throats
and the airwaves;
there is no real voice
from Nova Scotia to Patagonia.

To break the bondage of money
parents put their children in a car.
They go to Mt. Rushmore
where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
is singing, "Hallelujah, hallelujah
oh money, more money, hallelujah,"
and Washington winks at Lincoln
and Lincoln winks at Roosevelt,
and Jefferson smiles
at having hidden his Black concubine
in the attic,
while the deer in the bush
weep
at the horror of it all.