"Community Life in Poetry"
a year of poetry, a day of celebration, a constant community voice

Poetry

This poem appeared in David Lloyd’s poem sequence, The Gospel According to Frank (New American Press, 2003). Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Six Truths About Money

(1)

In truth, he created money before
he created men and women,
setting its core ablaze and placing it
on an altar in the Garden
so it might shine brighter than the sun.

 

(2)

In truth, money created itself,
moving its spirit over the face of the water,
organizing its forms out of neglected dust,
offering allegiance to no god or human
but finding its inevitable place
wherever two or three are gathered.

 

(3)

In truth, money was never created
but existed only in the stories
men and women told about it
as they tried to understand themselves,
and the objects their hand made,
and the objects their hands desired.

(4)

In truth, it was the stories about money
that created money, told so often
with such passion by so many
that no one could deny its existence
in their pockets, in their banks,
or in the banks of other people
who said few words,
and kept mostly to themselves.

(5)

In truth, money remade those who owned it
into taller and heavier beings
whose footsteps echoed
from mountain to mountain to mountain.

At the same time it created the machines
that make more money
and the ones that clean money,
the ones that hide it,
and the ones that take it away.

 

(6)

In truth, money first crawled on its belly
but complained so loudly about not being able to fly
that he gave it wings, talons, a beak.

With its beak, money dug a hole in the ground,
where it crawled, furled its wings,
tucked its talons,
and waited stubbornly for the end of time.