Famous Long Money Poems

Famous Long Money Poems. Long Money Poetry by Famous Poets. A collection of the all-time best Money long poems

See also: Long Member Poems

 YOU come along. . . tearing your shirt. . . yelling about
Jesus.
Where do you get that stuff?
What do you know about Jesus?
Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few
bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem
everybody liked to have this Jesus around because
he never made any fake passes and everything
he said went and he helped the sick and gave the
people hope.


You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist
and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers
over your lips. . . always blabbing we're all
going to hell straight off and you know all about it.


I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't
throw any scare into me. I've got your number. I
know how much you know about Jesus.
He never came near clean people or dirty people but
they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your
crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers
hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out
of the running.


I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into
the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined
up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men
now lined up with you paying your way.

This Jesus was...
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 White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier 
As we glide to the grand old sea -- 
But the song of my heart is for none to hear 
If one of them waves for me. 
A roving, roaming life is mine, 
Ever by field or flood -- 
For not far back in my father's line 
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood. 

Flax and tussock and fern, 
Gum and mulga and sand, 
Reef and palm -- but my fancies turn 
Ever away from land; 
Strange wild cities in ancient state, 
Range and river and tree, 
Snow and ice. But my star of fate 
Is ever across the sea. 

A god-like ride on a thundering sea, 
When all but the stars are blind -- 
A desperate race from Eternity 
With a gale-and-a-half behind. 
A jovial spree in the cabin at night, 
A song on the rolling deck, 
A lark ashore with the ships in sight, 
Till -- a wreck goes down with a wreck. 

A smoke and a yarn on the deck by day, 
When life is a waking dream, 
And care and trouble so far away 
That out of your life they seem. 
A roving spirit in sympathy, 
Who...
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 WHO knows what I know
when I have asked the night questions
and the night has answered nothing
only the old answers?

Who picked a crimson cryptogram,
the tail light of a motor car turning a corner,
or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering “hot-dog” to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler who has spoken the word or taken the number of night’s nothings? am I the spieler? or you?

Is there a tired head
the night has not fed and rested
and kept on its neck and shoulders?

Is there a wish
of man to woman
and woman to man
the night has not written
and signed its name under?

Does the night forget
as a woman forgets?
and remember
as a woman remembers?

Who gave the night
this head of hair,
this gipsy head
calling: Come-on?

Who gave the night anything at all
and asked the night questions
and was laughed at?

Who asked the night
for a long soft kiss
and lost the half-way lips?
who picked a red lamp in a mist?

Who saw the night
fold its Mona Lisa hands
and sit half-smiling, half-sad,
nothing at all,
and everything,
all the world ?

Who saw the night
let down its hair
and shake its bare shoulders
and blow out the candles of the moon,
whispering, snickering,
cutting off the snicker .. and...
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 A man once read with mind surprised 
Of the way that people were "hypnotised"; 
By waving hands you produced, forsooth, 
A kind of trance where men told the truth! 
His mind was filled with wond'ring doubt; 
He grabbed his hat and he started out, 
He walked the street and he made a "set" 
At the first half-dozen folk he met. 
He "tranced" them all, and without a joke 
'Twas much as follows the subjects spoke: 

First Man 
"I am a doctor, London-made, 
Listen to me and you'll hear displayed 
A few of the tricks of the doctor's trade. 
'Twill sometimes chance when a patient's ill 
That a doae, or draught, or a lightning pill, 
A little too strong or a little too hot, 
Will work its way to a vital spot. 
And then I watch with a sickly grin 
While the patient 'passes his counters in'. 
But when he has gone with his fleeting breath 
I certify that the cause of death 
Was something Latin, and something long, 
And who is to say that the doctor's wrong! 
So I go my way with a stately tread 
While my patients sleep with the dreamless dead." 


Next, Please 
"I am a...
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 "OH, when I was a little Ghost, 
A merry time had we! 
Each seated on his favourite post, 
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast 
They gave us for our tea." 

"That story is in print!" I cried. 
"Don't say it's not, because 
It's known as well as Bradshaw's Guide!" 
(The Ghost uneasily replied 
He hardly thought it was). 

"It's not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet 
I almost think it is - 
'Three little Ghosteses' were set 
'On posteses,' you know, and ate 
Their 'buttered toasteses.' 

"I have the book; so if you doubt it - " 
I turned to search the shelf. 
"Don't stir!" he cried. "We'll do without it: 
I now remember all about it; 
I wrote the thing myself. 

"It came out in a 'Monthly,' or 
At least my agent said it did: 
Some literary swell, who saw 
It, thought it seemed adapted for 
The Magazine he edited. 

"My father was a Brownie, Sir; 
My mother was a Fairy. 
The notion had occurred to her, 
The children would be happier, 
If they were taught to vary. 

"The notion soon became a craze; 
And, when it once began, she 
Brought us all out in different ways -...
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 "My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: 
 anyone who understands them eventually recognizes them as 
 nonsensical, when he has used them -- as steps -- to climb 
 up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder 
 after he has climbed up it.)" -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus 

1. 

The first time I met Wittgenstein, I was 
late. "The traffic was murder," I explained. 
He spent the next forty-five minutes 
analyzing this sentence. Then he was silent. 
I wondered why he had chosen a water tower
for our meeting. I also wondered how
I would leave, since the ladder I had used 
to climb up here had fallen to the ground. 

2. 

Wittgenstein served as a machine-gunner 
in the Austrian Army in World War I. 
Before the war he studied logic in Cambridge 
with Bertrand Russell. Having inherited 
his father's fortune (iron and steel), he 
gave away his money, not to the poor, whom 
it would corrupt, but to relations so rich 
it would not thus affect them. 

3. 

On leave in Vienna in August 1918 
he assembled his notebook entries 
into the Tractatus, Since it provided 
the definitive solution to all the problems...
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  III. — TO SIR ROBERT WROTH.          Art ta'en with neither's vice nor sport : That at great times, art no ambitious guest    Of sheriff 's dinner, or mayor's feast. Nor com'st to view the better cloth of state,    The richer hangings, or crown-plate ; Nor throng'st (when masquing is) to have a sight   There wasted, some not paid for yet ! But canst at home, in thy securer rest,    Live, with unbought provision blest ; Free from proud porches, or their gilded roofs,    'Mongst lowing herds, and solid hoofs : Along the curled woods, and painted meads,    Through which a serpent river leads To some cool courteous shade, which he calls his,   A-bed canst hear the loud stag speak, In spring, oft roused for thy master's sport,    Who for it makes thy house his court ; Or with thy friends, the heart of all the year    Divid'st, upon the lesser deer : In Autumn, at the partridge mak'st a flight,    And giv'st thy gladder guests the sight ; And in the winter, hunt'st the flying hare,   To the full greatness of the cry : Or hawking at the river, or the...
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 1
NOW list to my morning’s romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer; 
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me. 

A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother; 
How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother? 
Tell him to send me the signs.

And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand,
 and his
 left
 hand in my right hand, 
And I answer for his brother, and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and
 send
 these
 signs. 

2
Him all wait for—him all yield up to—his word is decisive and final, 
Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light, 
Him they immerse, and he immerses them.

Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals, 
The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my morning’s
 romanza;)

All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy, 
The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps, 
The noblest and costliest cities—others grading and building, and he domiciles there;
Nothing for any...
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 Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
with red carnations, and lettuces
mix with alyssum. And then
umbrella ants arrive,
or it rains for a solid week
and the whole thing's ruined again
and I buy you more pounds of seeds,
imported, guaranteed,
and eventually you bring me
a mystic thee-legged carrot,
or a pumpkin "bigger than the baby."

I watch you through the rain,
trotting, light, on bare feet,
up the steep paths you have made—
or your father and grandfather made—
all over my property,
with your head and back inside
a sodden burlap bag,
and feel I can't endure it
another minute; then,
indoors, beside the stove,
keep on reading a book.

You steal my telephone wires,
or someone does. You starve
your horse and yourself
and your dogs and family.
among endless variety,
you eat boiled cabbage stalks.
And once I yelled at you
so loud to hurry up
and fetch me those potatoes
your holey hat flew off,
you jumped out of your clogs,
leaving three objects arranged 
in a triangle at my feet,
as if you'd been a gardener
in a fairy tale all this time
and...
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(Español)
Hombres necios que acusáis
a la mujer sin razón,
sin ver que sois la ocasión
de lo mismo que culpáis:

si con ansia sin igual
solicitáis su desdén,
¿por qué quereis que obren bien
si las incitáis al mal?

Combatís su resistencia
y luego, con gravedad,
decís que fue liviandad
lo que hizo la diligencia.

Parecer quiere el denuedo
de vuestro parecer loco,
al niño que pone el coco
y luego le tiene miedo.

Queréis, con presunción necia,
hallar a la que buscáis,
para pretendida, Thais,
y en la posesión, Lucrecia

¿Qué humor puede ser más raro
que el que, falto de consejo,
el mismo empaña el espejo
y siente que no esté claro?

Con el favor y el desdén
tenéis condición igual,
quejándoos, si os tratan mal,
burlándoos, si os quieren bien.

Opinión, ninguna gana:
pues la que más se recata,
si no os admite, es ingrata,
y si os admite, es liviana

Siempre tan necios andáis
que, con desigual nivel,
a una culpáis por crüel
y a otra por fácil culpáis.

¿Pues cómo ha de estar templada
la que vuestro amor pretende,
si la que es ingrata, ofende,
y la que es fácil, enfada?

Mas, entre el enfado y pena
que vuestro gusto refiere,
bien haya la que no os quiere
y quejaos en hora buena.

Dan vuestras amantes penas
a sus libertades alas,
y después de hacerlas malas
las queréis hallar muy buenas.

¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido
en una pasión errada:
la que cae de rogada
o...
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 1.
Mother, my Mary Gray,
once resident of Gloucester
and Essex County,
a photostat of your will
arrived in the mail today.
This is the division of money.
I am one third
of your daughters counting my bounty
or I am a queen alone
in the parlor still,
eating the bread and honey.
It is Good Friday.
Black birds pick at my window sill.
Your coat in my closet,
your bright stones on my hand,
the gaudy fur animals
I do not know how to use,
settle on me like a debt.
A week ago, while the hard March gales
beat on your house,
we sorted your things: obstacles
of letters, family silver,
eyeglasses and shoes.
Like some unseasoned Christmas, its scales
rigged and reset,
I bundled out gifts I did not choose.
Now the houts of The Cross
rewind. In Boston, the devout
work their cold knees
toward that sweet martyrdom
that Christ planned. My timely loss
is too customary to note; and yet
I planned to suffer
and I cannot. It does not please
my yankee bones to watch
where the dying is done
in its usly hours. Black birds peck
at my window glass
and Easter will take its ragged son.
The clutter of worship
that you taught me, Mary Gray,
is old. I imitate
a memory of belief
that I do not own. I trip
on your death and jesus, my stranger
floats up over
my Christian home, wearing his straight
thorn tree....
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 Mine own John Poynz, since ye delight to know
The cause why that homeward I me draw,
And flee the press of courts, whereso they go,
Rather than to live thrall under the awe
Of lordly looks, wrappèd within my cloak,
To will and lust learning to set a law:
It is not for because I scorn or mock
The power of them, to whom fortune hath lent
Charge over us, of right, to strike the stroke.
But true it is that I have always meant
Less to esteem them than the common sort,
Of outward things that judge in their intent
Without regard what doth inward resort.
I grant sometime that of glory the fire
Doth twyche my heart. Me list not to report
Blame by honour, and honour to desire.
But how may I this honour now attain,
That cannot dye the colour black a liar?
My Poynz, I cannot from me tune to feign,
To cloak the truth for praise without desert
Of them that list all vice for to retain.
I cannot honour them that sets their part
With Venus and Bacchus all their life long;
Nor hold my peace of them although I smart.
I cannot crouch nor kneel to do so great a wrong,
To worship them, like God on earth alone,
That are as wolves these sely lambs...
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 (As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality)

I

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!

II

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.

III

Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain's edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
- I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.

IV

But the city, oh the city—the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry!
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by:
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.

V

What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights,
'Tis May perhaps ere the...
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 It was somewhere in September, and the sun was going down, 
When I came, in search of `copy', to a Darling-River town; 
`Come-and-have-a-drink' we'll call it -- 'tis a fitting name, I think -- 
And 'twas raining, for a wonder, up at Come-and-have-a-drink. 

'Neath the public-house verandah I was resting on a bunk 
When a stranger rose before me, and he said that he was drunk; 
He apologised for speaking; there was no offence, he swore; 
But he somehow seemed to fancy that he'd seen my face before. 

`No erfence,' he said. I told him that he needn't mention it, 
For I might have met him somewhere; I had travelled round a bit, 
And I knew a lot of fellows in the bush and in the streets -- 
But a fellow can't remember all the fellows that he meets. 

Very old and thin and dirty were the garments that he wore, 
Just a shirt and pair of trousers, and a boot, and nothing more; 
He was wringing-wet, and really in a sad and sinful plight, 
And his hat was in his left hand, and a bottle in his right. 

His brow was broad and roomy, but its lines were...
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 Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side. 

So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down by his bedside,
And then told him to be honest whatever did betide. 

John, he said, looking him earnestly in the face,
Never let your actions your name disgrace,
Remember, my dear boy, and do what's right,
And God will bless you by day and night. 

Then Mr Honest bade his son farewell, and breathed his last,
While the hot tears from Jack's eyes fell thick and fast;
And the poor child did loudly sob and moan,
When he knew his father had left him and his mother alone. 

So, as time wore on, Jack grew to be a fine boy,
And was to his mother a help and joy;
And, one evening, she said, Jack, you are my only prop,
I must tell you, dear, I'm thinking about opening a shop. 

Oh! that's a capital thought, mother, cried Jack,
And to take care of the shop I won't be slack;
Then...
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