Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Money (for World Savings/Thrift Day)

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World Savings Day was created and is still organized by banks.  Why save at home when you could establish a bank to"put your money to work"?

International Saving Day Austria

Midweek Motif ~  Money  

(for World Savings/Thrift Day)

In the USA, World Savings and Halloween share the same date.  This year, we're "talking money."

Money.  How did it become so important? Little coins and paper bills, numbers in websites, global economies, lotteries, "haves and have nots," etc. 

Here are a few quotes to consider:  

     “Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget,

 and I'll tell you what you value.” ― Joe Biden

     “Why people take drugs baffles me to no end. Especially when  they can't afford them.” ― Terry McMillan

     "A penny saved is a penny earned." ― Benjamin Franklin

     "There are two major modes for dealing with money in life: circulation and congestion. Circulation is paying bills, tithing, giving to charity. Congestion is hoarding, saving for a rainy day, being stingy. It's no coincidence that one word for money is currency; it comes from the word current, which means flow."  ― Beliefnet, "10 Spiritual Ways to think About Money"

     “I learn over and over again, that we can't spend, save, or budget money when we have too little money to begin with.” ― Susan Chast

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Your Challenge: Write a new poem with money as its focus.  Dwell on what money is and does, reveal it.

Comme Sisyphe - Honoré Daumier

Velocity of Money
by Allen Ginsberg

I’m delighted by the velocity of money as it whistles through the windows of Lower East Side
Delighted by skyscrapers rising the old grungy apartments falling on 84th Street
Delighted by inflation that drives me out on the street
After all what good’s the family farm, why eat turkey by thousands every Thanksgiving?
Why not have Star Wars? Why have the same old America?!?
George Washington wasn’t good enough! Tom Paine pain in the neck,
Whitman what a jerk!
I’m delighted by double digit interest rates in the Capitalist world
I always was a communist, now we’ll win an usury makes the walls thinner, books thicker & dumber
Usury makes my poetry more valuable
my manuscripts worth their weight in useless gold -
Now everybody’s atheist like me, nothing’s sacred
buy and sell your grandmother, eat up old age homes,
Peddle babies on the street, pretty boys for sale on Times Square -
You can shoot heroin, I can sniff cocaine,
macho men can fite on the Nicaraguan border and get paid with paper!
The velocity’s what counts as the National Debt gets higher
Everybody running after the rising dollar
Crowds of joggers down broadway past City Hall on the way to the Fed
Nobody reads Dostoyevsky books so they’ll have to give a passing ear
to my fragmented ravings in between President’s speeches
Nothing’s happening but the collapse of the Economy
so I can go back to sleep till the landlord wins his eviction suit in court.

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An Escape

BY HA JIN 

We sat in the neon light
on a cool evening of a summer day
drinking beer and eating salad.
You told me your story
similar to those of many others:

All your savings are gone,

the managers, the secretaries, the supervisors,

the police in charge of passports

all having received a handsome share.
Now you have nothing left there,
your color TV and refrigerator were sold
to get the cash for the plane ticket.
“But I was lucky,” you assured me.
“Many people have spent fortunes
and still cannot leave the country.”

. . . .

(Read the rest HERE.)

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The Money Tree (Children)
by C.J. Heck

I dreamed I grew a money tree
outside in my yard.
My job was to care for it
and I worked very hard.

I saw that it was watered.
It grew so straight and tall
and when the money ripened
I picked it in the fall.

The flowers were green dollar bills, 

the seeds inside were coins, 

and others grew and glittered

where all the branches joined.

On windy days I stood below

and held a great big bucket.

Other days I climbed right up

to find one ripe and pluck it.

People say that money

doesn't really grow on trees.

I know. I only wish it did
just like in my dreams.

                         💰

Money Makes The Mirth

by Robert Herrick

When all birds else do of their music fail,

Money's the still-sweet-singing nightingale! 
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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.  

   (Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Reading Fiction.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Charity

"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.” 

― Maya Angelou

“Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens 
those who dispense it.” 
― George Sand

https://nationaltoday.com/international-day-charity/

"The International Day of Charity was originally a Hungarian civil society initiative. . . . [I]nstituted on September 5 to commemorate the anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death. . . . [E]mphasis is placed on enhancing visibility, organizing special events, and increasing solidarity, social responsibility, and public support. "

Mother Theresa in Calcutta
UN Photo/O. Monsen

Midweek Motif ~ Charity

We may debate the politics of charity elsewhere, here let's describe charity instead: How does it feel to give?  to receive?  to be pressured to give or receive?  to refuse?  How do you know?

Your challenge: Write one new poem about giving and/or receiving some type of charity. Use a favorite quote about charity if you wish.

Depiction of Guan Yin in Vietnam 
The Bodhisattva of Compassion and Kindness

The giver (for Berdis)

BY JAMES BALDWIN

If the hope of giving

is to love the living,

the giver risks madness

in the act of giving.

Some such lesson I seemed to see

in the faces that surrounded me.

Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,

what gift would give them the gift to be gifted?

          The giver is no less adrift

          than those who are clamouring for the gift.

If they cannot claim it, if it is not there,

if their empty fingers beat the empty air

and the giver goes down on his knees in prayer

knows that all of his giving has been for naught

and that nothing was ever what he thought

and turns in his guilty bed to stare

at the starving multitudes standing there

and rises from bed to curse at heaven,

he must yet understand that to whom much is given

much will be taken, and justly so:

I cannot tell how much I owe.

quaking conversation

BY LENELLE MOÏSE

i want to talk about haiti.

how the earth had to break

the island’s spine to wake

the world up to her screaming.

how this post-earthquake crisis

is not natural

or supernatural.

i want to talk about disasters.

. . . .  

i want to talk about our irreversible dead.

the artists, the activists, the spiritual leaders,

the family members, the friends, the merchants

the outcasts, the cons.

all of them, my newest ancestors,

all of them, hovering now,

watching our collective response,

keeping score, making bets.

i want to talk about money.

how one man's recession might be

another man's unachievable reality.

how unfair that is.

how i see a haitian woman’s face

every time i look down at a hot meal,

slip into my bed, take a sip of water,

show mercy to a mirror.

 . . . . 

(Read the rest HERE.)

New Stanzas for Amazing Grace

BY ALLEN GINSBERG

I dreamed I dwelled in a homeless place

Where I was lost alone

Folk looked right through me into space

And passed with eyes of stone

O homeless hand on many a street

Accept this change from me

A friendly smile or word is sweet

As fearless charity

Woe workingman who hears the cry

And cannot spare a dime

Nor look into a homeless eye

Afraid to give the time

So rich or poor no gold to talk

A smile on your face

The homeless ones where you may walk

Receive amazing grace

I dreamed I dwelled in a homeless place

Where I was lost alone

Folk looked right through me into space

And passed with eyes of stone 

(See the International Day of Charity Facebook Page)

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Sunset.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Aviation

Civil aircraft. Photo: ICAO

“Working Together to Ensure 
No Country is Left Behind”

(Theme of International Civil Aviation Day for 2015-2019)

International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Flag

“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space... on the infinite highway of the air.” ― Wilbur Wright

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” ― Henry David Thoreau

"Aviation, this young modern giant, exemplifies the possible relationship of women and the creations of science. Although women have not taken full advantage of its use and benefits, air travel is as available to them as to men."--Amelia Earhart

“Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.”― Amelia Earhart

Midweek Motif ~ Aviation

Today's motif may feel like a complete change of subject, 

but it can be as political or non-political as you make it.

7 December is International Civil Aviation Day. Interesting that it is the same day as the USA National Pearl Harbor Remembrance. Do the two uses of aviation~for war and for peace~balance each other out? 

I rarely fly.  I've been finding flying increasingly uncomfortable from airport security and wait time to take off, flight service and landing. But still, flying to a remote location for vacation is a privilege that carries romance as well as discomfort and danger.

Our Challenge: Compose a new poem from the point of view of someone looking out the window of a flying machine.

Laurie Anderson's "From the Air"

FLIGHT TO LIMBO

Related Poem Content Details

BY JOHN UPDIKE

(At What Used to Be Called Idlewild)

The line didn’t move, though there were not 

many people in it. In a half-hearted light 

the lone agent dealt patiently, noiselessly, endlessly 

with a large dazed family ranging 

from twin toddlers in strollers to an old lady 

in a bent wheelchair. Their baggage 

was all in cardboard boxes. The plane was delayed, 

the rumor went through the line. We shrugged, 

in our hopeless overcoats. Aviation 

had never seemed a very natural idea. 

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.)

excerpt from New York to San Fran

Related Poem Content Details

BY ALLEN GINSBERG

. . . . 

Once more wingtip lifting to the sun

& whine of dynamos in the

stunned ear,

and shafts of light on the page

in the airplane cabin — 

Once more the cities of cloud

advancing over New York — ­

Once more the houses parked like used

cars in myriad row lots — 

I plug in the Jetarama Theater

sterilized Earphones — ­

it’s wagner!

the ride of the valkyries!

We’re above the clouds! The

Sunlight flashes on a giant bay!

Earth is below! The horns of

Siegfried sound gigantic in my ear — 

The banks of silver clouds 
like mountain ranges

I spread my giant green map

on the air-table — 

The Hudson curved below to the

floor-drop of the World,

Mountain range after mountain range,

Thunder after thunder,

Cumulus above cumulus,

World after world reborn,

in the ears 

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.)

Courage 

BY Amelia Earhart

Courage is the price that Life exacts

     for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not

Knows no release from little things:

Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,

Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear

     The sound of wings.

How can life grant us boon of living, compensate

For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate

Unless we dare

The soul's dominion? Each time we

make a choice, we pay

With courage to behold the resistless day,

And count it fair. 

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community.  AND: please put a link to this prompt with your poem.  

(Next week Sumana's Midweek Motif will be Music. )