Money

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.