The Money

 

When it’s threatened the money flees

into the coffee stain on the Wall Street Journal,

into the cell phone, across the Atlantic, into gold and bonds

and jewels and pieces of paper no one understands but the money itself.

 

We built its palaces, its armies, its angels, and dominions.

Now the table is turned  The money has taken over. It whispers like Iago, it tempts like Mephistopheles, it lures like the Sirens, it preaches like Jeremiah, it laughs like thunder, hurricanes, mudslides and earthquakes.

 

Theology 101: If God is all-powerful, what is more powerful than the money?

If God is all-knowing, what knows more than the money?

God jealous? Not more than the money.

Vengeance is God’s? Not more than the money.

God silent? Inscrutable? Think about the money. When did it ever tell us the truth?

 

Only the money can always get what it wants: whatever is faster, whatever is stronger, whatever you need to be able to say yes or no, not  be tossed overboard, have your belly scraped empty, your eyes hollowed out, your days full of panic because you don’t have what the money has, the money.

 

Now it says it is a foundation and all about good. Now it says it supports open societies and all about freedom. Now it says it is the animal spirit of humankind and all about everything. The money makes wrongs right. The money makes us forget.  The money takes over our dreams.

 

Not much to look at, almost invisible, hard to describe, sexy sometimes, plain other times. Great sense of humor. Mean streak. But calm, very calm. No cartographer has ever been able to map it. LIght is the fastest thing in the universe except the money.

The money is the floor of freezing. Diamonds aren’t hard; the money is hard. Knives aren’t sharp; the money is sharp. The money makes us bleed; the money makes us bruise.

 

 

We should think about the money all the time, pray to the money, beseech the money to buy us good leaders, beg the money to clothe and house us and cut out the tricks, jokes and pranks. Why does the money belittle and punish us? Why does the money laugh at us and embarrass us before our children and parents?  Why is the money the same key to palaces and prisons?