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.
(Philip Larkin)
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Based on Topics: Sadness Poems, Money & Wealth Poems, Singing Poems, Facts Poems, Sex PoemsBased on Keywords: upstairs, canal, shave, provincial, cheques, reproaches, enquire, intensely, ornate, quarterly, wastefully