“Money” - A poem

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: ‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully? I am all you never had of goods and sex, You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’

So I look at others, what they do with theirs: They certainly don’t keep it upstairs. By now they’ve a second house and car and wife: Clearly money has something to do with life

—In fact, they’ve a lot in common, if you enquire: You can’t put off being young until you retire, And however you bank your screw, the money you save Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down From long French windows at a provincial town, The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

by Philip Larkin