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Coins are round and come and go.

Corsican proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Dross coins and wealth

i.

Dross coins and wealth
Dross coins and wealth
Dross coins and wealth
You wallow in them
You think of them again, again
Dross coins and wealth
Dross coins and wealth
Dross coins and wealth
One even grey a blank vacant sterility.

ii.

Round the green hill
The rivulet glideth:
The birds flieth
The owl singeth
How happy is the earth to-day!

iii.

From the small dale
The shepherd voice ariseth
Into a sweet canticle
As the day falleth
As the red dusk cometh
And night in mantle dark
By the next dale is coming
Coming fast:
Coming fast
Like sleep
Sleep
Sleep
Welcome sleep
The night cometh
The skies are darkening:
The stars are twinkling
And one by one
Coming like Morpheus with his wand
Into the next sleep beginning
The eye-lids how drowsy lie
And flicker like torch-lights
Slowly
Slowly
Slowly
Mor pheus is breathing slow
His hot and wanton breath

[...] Read more

poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
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A Coin Of Little Worth

I have seen and liked
silver coins stamped
in ancient Greece Rome

these usually carry the image
of supposedly great men
kings emperors face in profile

but their deeds were often
treacherous harsh cruel
wars these started for more
wealth slaves land to rule

my favourite coin
is a very small coin
tiny of little worth

that a woman with nothing
once gave at the temple
a very very long time ago

My Lord praised her
for giving all her livelihood
for giving more than

all gathered rich worshippers
combined because
proud rich gave a percentage

from all their amassed profit
a percentage calculated
based upon requirements of

law; but a poor woman gave
everything she had
based upon her own giving heart

it is written how Jesus sat down;
with the treasury chests in view
observing how the crowd dropped

money into the treasury chests;

many rich people were dropping in
many coins however a poor
widow woman dropped in only two

small coins which had very little value;

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Listening to every Tom, Dick and Donkey

Come, we have a story, said the Old Man. Come, sit and I shall tell you all a little tale of a donkey, a boy and his father…and of strangers too…and many a busybody…
And the children sat round the campfire and the Old Man began his tale…

One day
(and this is many, many
uncountable days ago)
Father called Son
and he said:
‘Son
you are grown now
into a fine young lad
and you must learn
how to buy and sell
and make a profit

‘So, come let us go
you and I
to the market to see
what silver coins we can get
for this old donkey
in our shed’

2

And so Son and Dad
set out for the town market
across the sandy and rocky miles
and some way off
Dad grew tired and he said:

‘Ah, Son
this walk tires me and so
I shall ride the donkey
while you walk by the side;
so, come let us go
you and I
to the market to see
what silver coins we can get
for this old donkey
that I shall ride’

[...] Read more

poem by Raj Arumugam
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Dreaming On A World

I know I may be wishing
On a world
That may never be
But Ill keep on wishing
No matter how hopeless
Or foolish
It may seem
Ill keep on wishing
Ill toss my coins in the fountain
Look for clovers in grassy lawns
Search for shooting stars in the night
Cross my fingers and dream on
I know I may be dreaming
Of a world
Far from present day reality
But Ill keep on dreaming
No matter how unrealistic
Or naive
It may seem always keep dreaming
And toss your coins in the fountain
Look for clovers in grassy lawns
Search for shooting stars in the night
Cross your fingers and dream on
We must always be thinking
Of a world
As a place of infinite possibilities
And always keep thinking
No matter how hopeless
Or foolish
It may seem
Always keep thinking
And toss our coins in the fountain
Look for clovers in grassy lawns
Search for shooting stars in the night
Cross our fingers and dream on
Ill keep on wishing
We must always keep dreaming
Of a world
With equality and justice
Thinking
There could be a world
Without poverty and sickness
Wishing
Of a world
Without hunger and homelessness
Dreaming
Of a world
Where all people live in peace
Dreaming
Of a world

[...] Read more

song performed by Tracy Chapman
Added by Lucian Velea
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Afterlife

Coins fall in a
Myriad of colors, as
Confetti thrown at a surprise party-
From a place that could be heaven
My thoughts, broadcasted aloud.

Listen
None but a celebration-
A surprise is to see the dancing waters
Rise and fall to the tune of Chopin’s waltzes.
Drop a coin in a fountain, no matter how fluorescent the color.

My thoughts are muted, as
Cotton fills each hollow space in my brain
A strange and inexplicable sensation this is,
Forever misunderstood-as the hands
Of my digital watch, I would turn
If it deemed possible- and count backwards fifty-one years
A power struggle, it would be, against the romances of nature
.
Every clock ticks as
Each hand, second by second advances,
Carrying me to the unknown?
Ashes to ashes, to hell or heaven, or could there even be an
Afterlife
At all?

Coins fall from where could be heaven.
I hear strange voices within a charnel house,
Every clock in this world must be ticking. As
Second hands advance about every watch face.

Pendulums sway, as metronomes beat,
While my night was sleepless…
I never celebrated a party where I threw confetti, or neither
Did I ever catch a handful of coins- no matter how colorful, as they
Fell from the sky.
I was never enticed by the sight of waters dancing.
I lived in the charnel house while the rest of the world was alive.
Cotton stuffed in
Every empty space of my brain
Dampened my spirits.
A lone coin tumbles from the could-be heavens.
Perhaps I did not hear the time lapse?

poem by Claudia Krizay
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Castile

Orange blossoms blowing over Castile
children begging for coins

I met my love under an orange tree
or was it an acacia tree
or was he not my love?

I read this, then I dreamed this:
can waking take back what happened to me?
Bells of San Miguel
ringing in the distance
his hair in the shadows blond-white

I dreamed this,
does that mean it didn't happen?
Does it have to happen in the world to be real?

I dreamed everything, the story
became my story:

he lay beside me,
my hand grazed the skin of his shoulder

Mid-day, then early evening:
in the distance, the sound of a train

But it was not the world:
in the world, a thing happens finally, absolutely,
the mind cannot reverse it.

Castile: nuns walking in pairs through the dark garden.
Outside the walls of the Holy Angels
children begging for coins

When I woke I was crying,
has that no reality?

I met my love under an orange tree:
I have forgotten
only the facts, not the inference—
there were children, somewhere, crying, begging for coins

I dreamed everything, I gave myself
completely and for all time

And the train returned us
first to Madrid
then to the Basque country

[...] Read more

poem by Louise Gluck
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Train No: 6009

Mumbai Mail is a jail
causing me to pass through terrible ordeals
station by every small station,
where its hooting woke no one.
As if to bail me out of my strain
an old money lender with his wife
got in and sat opposite at Wadi.

Snacks galore!
Plate after plate
they were emptying
and driving away the beggars
by waving their hands,
when their harsh words
failed to keep them at bay.
In two, three places
they went out, gave sweet packets
to their kin who touched their feet
and blessed them by snuggling them close.

Poor women with babies,
children singing and dancng,
boys and girls cleaning the coach,
the flesh starved skeletons,
buffeted by illness,
the physically and mentally challenged……
Nobody got a coin or a measly food from them.
Giving alms might be a drain on their resources.
and a stain on their palms.
To cause a flutter in their hearts,
I slid down some coins
in the hands of the misfortune.
But the stubborn man
guided all the beggars towards me.

They dropped coins of high value
into the rivers Krishna and the Tungabadra
murmuring the name of some god.
But their coins didn’t slip down
into the river of suffering humanity.
-----------

poem by Rajendran Muthiah
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Jazz and The Hobo

It was a Saturday morning
And you were 19

and you were racing along
Victoria Street having just left

Victoria Railway Station
on your way to Dobell's

Jazz Record Shop
moving quickly

through the sea
of humanity

thinking of jazz
and what record

you were going to buy
at the shop that day

imaging yourself
fingering through LP sleeves

taking a mental note
of which one

you might buy
a John Coltrane or Miles Davis

an Art Blakey or maybe
a Dizzy Gillespie

a jazz record being played
over the loudspeakers

in the shop
you mingling with others

in the crowded place
when this hobo stopped you

taking hold of your jacket gently
and said

have you got some small change
for a sandwich?

no
you replied

[...] Read more

poem by Terry Collett
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Refinement Of A Pot

Refinement of a pot appears effete
if you don’t like irregularities.
Once baked inside a kiln the searing heat
preserves forever angularities
that may be smoothed while it is wet and warm,
yet only when it’s finally been glazed
are faults seen in perspective, in a form
that sometimes tells the viewer: be amazed.

Inspired by Christopher Knight’s review of an exhibition of the pots of the Biloxi potter, George E. Ohr, in the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona (“Pottery with a Modernist twist, ” LA Times, December 26,2007) :

Ohr was a certified eccentric, not least as indicated by the 20-inch mustache he reportedly draped over his ears to keep from getting it tangled in the spinning potter's wheel. But he was nonetheless a gifted journeyman. The son of an Eastern European immigrant blacksmith, he was taught the potter's traditional craft by an Alsatian father-and-son team, first in Biloxi and later in New Orleans.
Ohr learned how to prepare clay, build kilns and manipulate standard glaze formulas. He also spent two years traveling the Midwest and the South examining rival production facilities, to better know the competition. He regularly visited (and sometimes showed his wares at) giant trade shows, such as Chicago's famous 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The souvenirs sold at these fairs, such as the Christopher Columbus coins designed by the preeminent sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens for the Chicago extravaganza, might also have provided inspiration. The Pomona show includes five so-called 'brothel coins' that Ohr made for the Gulf Coast tourist trade. Each small, unglazed clay disk pairs words with a low-relief image to make a verbal-visual rebus: 'I love U' written above a leaping deer; 'let's go 2' above a bed; and other, bawdier couplings. A far cry from Saint-Gaudens' lofty allusion to classical Roman coins, Ohr's comic souvenirs reflected his own oddball character. In a nation uncomfortable with art, being wacky could function as a defensive mechanism - as a wink and a nod that minimized the threat of being taken seriously. With nothing left to lose after his pottery burned to the ground, Ohr unleashed his expert technical skill. Rather than return to producing utilitarian dishes and vases for the home, he began to play with conventional ceramic forms. He began to make art. Pomona is the first stop on a tour prepared by Biloxi's Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art, whose large collection happily survived the brutal assault of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Twenty-eight of the pieces are from the museum's collection, while the rest have been lent by private collections in Mississippi and California.

12/27/07

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Words are the coins making up the currency of sentences, and there are always too many small coins.

quote by Jules Renard
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Treasured

Treasure is a lovely love, a built book,
One of the heavens contains the treasure.
Treasure forbade me to truly become you,
Understanding the gold and silver is becoming clear.

Let golden items sway, let gold become heavenly
By being money and wealth of a man in reign.
The money colder is the money touched;
Anywhere you go, is the silver being rich?

Let coins be coins as far as the eyes glance,
The body I suffer shall happen to be in the river of gold.

poem by Naveed Akram
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Golden Coins

(words & music by giant - baum - kaye)
Say youre mine, then ask me what you will
All your dreams, my darling Ill fulfill
Golden coins, I will bring to you
Silver trinkets and rubies too
In return dear Im begging you
For the pleasures of love
Ill bring gifts, like you never saw
Priceless garments that youll adore
Persian rugs to enhance your floor
For the pleasures of love
Darling, choose anything you please
Rich brocade, or woven tapestries
In exchange, I plead on my knees
For the pleasure of love
Golden coins, Ill place at your feet
Precious jewels to make life complete
All my treasures are yours my sweet
For the pleasures of love

song performed by Elvis Presley
Added by Lucian Velea
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Feast Of Lights

You never write, you never call
And now you wander in the hall
You look familiar;
I barely know your face at all
We never get together at all
Until the last day of Hanukkah.
I got you a harmonica
And a bag of chocolate coins.
The only thing we have is fights,
But there's got to be a change tonight.
Please be nice on this feast of lights.
We never get together at all
Until the last day of Hanukkah.
I got you a harmonica,
And a bag of chocolate coins.
The only thing we have is fights,
But there's got to be a change tonight.
Please be nice on this feast of lights.
Please be nice on this feast of lights.
Please be nice on this feast of lights.

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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Paper And Iron

Paper, iron, won't buy eden
Working for paper and for iron
Work for the right to keep my tie on
Working for paper and for iron
Work for the unicorn and lion
I pray the kids aren't starving
No chicken for the sunday carving
I'll stay for one more farthing
I take home my notes and coins every week
I'm told i'm worth much more
But the church says turn the other cheek
The other cheek
Paper, iron, won't buy eden.
I know the family needs me
Can't moan, the factory feeds me
Won't bite the hand that bleeds me
I take home my notes and coins every week
I'll inherit the earth i'm told
But the church says to remain this meek
Remain this meek
I'm still a proud man.
Won't show anybody else my wage
A blend in the crowd man
Is this anybody's golden age
Is this anybody's golden age
Is this anybody's golden age
Or am i dreaming of a golden cage
La la lo it's paper
La la lo it's iron
La la lo just paper
La la lo just iron

song performed by Xtc
Added by Lucian Velea
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Paper & Iron

Paper, iron, wont buy eden
Working for paper and for iron
Work for the right to keep my tie on
Working for paper and for iron
Work for the unicorn and lion
I pray the kids arent starving
No chicken for the sunday carving
Ill stay for one more farthing
I take home my notes and coins every week
Im told Im worth much more
But the church says turn the other cheek
The other cheek
Paper, iron, wont buy eden.
I know the family needs me
Cant moan, the factory feeds me
Wont bite the hand that bleeds me
I take home my notes and coins every week
Ill inherit the earth Im told
But the church says to remain this meek
Remain this meek
Im still a proud man.
Wont show anybody else my wage
A blend in the crowd man
Is this anybodys golden age
Is this anybodys golden age
Is this anybodys golden age
Or am I dreaming of a golden cage
La la lo its paper
La la lo its iron
La la lo just paper
La la lo just iron

song performed by Xtc
Added by Lucian Velea
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History

What wrecked the Roman power? One says vice,
Another indolence, another dice.
Emascle says polygamy. 'Not so,'
Says Impycu-''twas luxury and show.'
The parson, lifting up a brow of brass,
Swears superstition gave the _coup de grace_,
Great Allison, the statesman-chap affirms
'Twas lack of coins (croaks Medico: ''T was worms')
And John P. Jones the swift suggestion collars,
Averring the no coins were silver dollars.
Thus, through the ages, each presuming quack
Turns the poor corpse upon its rotten back,
Holds a new 'autopsy' and finds that death
Resulted partly from the want of breath,
But chiefly from some visitation sad
That points his argument or serves his fad.
They're all in error-never human mind
The cause of the disaster has divined.
What slew the Roman power? Well, provided
You'll keep the secret, I will tell you. I did.

poem by Ambrose Bierce
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After The Rain [for W. D. Snodgrass]

The barbed-wire fences rust
As their cedar uprights blacken
After a night of rain.
Some early, innocent lust
Gets me outdoors to smell
The teasle, the pelted bracken,
The cold, mossed-over well,
Rank with its iron chain,

And takes me off for a stroll.
Wetness has taken over.
From drain and creeper twine
It’s runnelled and trenched and edged
A pebbled serpentine
Secretly, as though pledged
To attain a difficult goal
And join some important river.

The air is a smear of ashes
With a cool taste of coins.
Stiff among misty washes,
The trees are as black as wicks,
Silent, detached and old.
A pallor undermines
Some damp and swollen sticks.
The woods are rich with mould.

How even and pure this light!
All things stand on their own,
Equal and shadowless,
In a world gone pale and neuter,
Yet riddled with fresh delight.
The heart of every stone
Conceals a toad, and the grass
Shines with a douse of pewter.

Somewhere a branch rustles
With the life of squirrels or birds,
Some life that is quick and right.
This queer, delicious bareness,
This plain, uniform light,
In which both elms and thistles,
Grass, boulders, even words,
Speak for a Spartan fairness,

[...] Read more

poem by Anthony Evan Hecht
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Jenny

Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
Whose head upon my knee to-night
Rests for a while, as if grown light
With all our dances and the sound
To which the wild tunes spun you round:
Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen
Of kisses which the blush between
Could hardly make much daintier;
Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair
Is countless gold incomparable:
Fresh flower, scarce touched with signs that tell
Of Love's exuberant hotbed:—Nay,
Poor flower left torn since yesterday
Until to-morrow leave you bare;
Poor handful of bright spring-water
Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face;
Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace
Thus with your head upon my knee;—
Whose person or whose purse may be
The lodestar of your reverie?
This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
A change from mine so full of books,
Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,
So many captive hours of youth,—
The hours they thieve from day and night
To make one's cherished work come right,
And leave it wrong for all their theft,
Even as to-night my work was left:
Until I vowed that since my brain
And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,
My feet should have some dancing too:—
And thus it was I met with you.
Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part,
For here I am. And now, sweetheart,
You seem too tired to get to bed.
It was a careless life I led
When rooms like this were scarce so strange
Not long ago. What breeds the change,—
The many aims or the few years?
Because to-night it all appears
Something I do not know again.
The cloud's not danced out of my brain—
The cloud that made it turn and swim
While hour by hour the books grew dim.
Why, Jenny, as I watch you there,—
For all your wealth of loosened hair,
Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd
And warm sweets open to the waist,
All golden in the lamplight's gleam,—

[...] Read more

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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On A Handful Of French Money

These coins that jostle on my hand do own
No single image: each name here and date
Denoting in man's consciousness and state
New change. In some, the face is clearly known,—
In others marred. The badge of that old throne
Of Kings is on the obverse; or this sign
Which says, “I France am all—lo, I am mine!”
Or else the Eagle that dared soar alone.
Even as these coins, so are these lives and years
Mixed and bewildered; yet hath each of them
No less its part in what is come to be
For France. Empire, Republic, Monarchy,—
Each clamours or keeps silence in her name,
And lives within the pulse that now is hers.

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Three Coins

In the fountains of our youth
are scattered three coins of our life.
The past, the present and the future
all of them lay there.
As we dip into the waters,
we try to pluck out each coin.
We may grab the past,
maybe even the present,
but the future lies beyond our reach
elusive, as it will always be.
We have lived the past,
the present we are living.
However, the future
is never ours to see
and so we leave the three coins
in the fountains of our youth
where they will always be.

19 August 2009

poem by David Harris
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