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Famous Short Money Poems

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


by Henry Lawson
 I'll tell you what you wanderers, who drift from town to town; 
Don't look into a good girl's eyes, until you've settled down. 
It's hard to go away alone and leave old chums behind- 
It's hard to travel steerage when your tastes are more refined- 
To reach a place when times are bad, and to be standing there, 
No money in your pocket nor a decent rag to wear. 
But be forced from that fond clasp, from that last clinging kiss- 
By poverty! There is on earth no harder thing than this.



by Dylan Thomas
 Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes.
(Bury the dead for fear that they walk to the grave in labour.)
In the groin of the natural doorway I crouched like a tailor
Sewing a shroud for a journey
By the light of the meat-eating sun.
Dressed to die, the sensual strut begun,
With my red veins full of money,
In the final direction of the elementary town
I advance as long as forever is.

by Charles Bukowski
 To end up alone
in a tomb of a room
without cigarettes
or wine--
just a lightbulb
and a potbelly,
grayhaired,
and glad to have
the room. 
...in the morning
they're out there
making money:
judges, carpenters,
plumbers, doctors,
newsboys, policemen,
barbers, carwashers,
dentists, florists,
waitresses, cooks,
cabdrivers... 
and you turn over
to your left side
to get the sun
on your back
and out
of your eyes. 
from "All's Normal Here" - 1985

by Charles Bukowski
 these things that we support most well 
have nothing to do with up, 
and we do with them 
out of boredom or fear or money 
or cracked intelligence; 
our circle and our candle of light 
being small, 
so small we cannot bear it, 
we heave out with Idea 
and lose the Center: 
all wax without the wick, 
and we see names that once meant 
wisdom, 
like signs into ghost towns, 
and only the graves are real.

by Mari Evans
Where have you gone

with your confident 
walk with 
your crooked smile


why did you leave 
me 
when you took your 
laughter 
and departed 
are you aware that 
with you 
went the sun 
all light 
and what few stars 
there were?


where have you gone 
with your confident 
walk your 
crooked smile the 
rent money 
in one pocket and 
my heart 
in another . . . 



by Ted Kooser
 First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

A Coin  Create an image from this poem
by Carl Sandburg
 YOUR western heads here cast on money,
You are the two that fade away together,
Partners in the mist.

Lunging buffalo shoulder,
Lean Indian face,
We who come after where you are gone
Salute your forms on the new nickel.

You are
To us:
The past.

Runners
On the prairie:
Good-by.

by Charles Bukowski
 Van Gogh cut off his ear
gave it to a
prostitute
who flung it away in
extreme
disgust.
Van, whores don't want
ears
they want
money.
I guess that's why you were
such a great
painter: you
didn't understand
much
else.

by Edgar Lee Masters
 I never saw any difference
Between playing cards for money
And selling real estate,
Practicing law, banking, or anything else.
For everything is chance.
Nevertheless
Seest thou a man diligent in business?
He shall stand before Kings!

by Hermann Hesse
 I walk so often, late, along the streets,
Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread,
Suddenly, silently, you still might rise
And I would have to gaze on all your grief
With my own eyes,
While you demand your happiness, that's dead.
I know, you walk beyond me, every night,
With a coy footfall, in a wretched dress
And walk for money, looking miserable!
Your shoes gather God knows what ugly mess,
The wind plays in your hair with lewd delight---
You walk, and walk, and find no home at all.

by Wanda Phipps
 groggy voice
hangover head
phone rongs
work call
money writing
muddled thoughts
adrenaline rush
hands clutch
power book
pauses comerapid doubts
make calls
take notes
ming push
fear waits

by Philip Larkin
 For nations vague as weed,
For nomads among stones,
Small-statured cross-faced tribes
And cobble-close families
In mill-towns on dark mornings
Life is slow dying.

So are their separate ways
Of building, benediction,
Measuring love and money
Ways of slow dying.
The day spent hunting pig 
Or holding a garden-party,

Hours giving evidence
Or birth, advance
On death equally slowly.
And saying so to some
Means nothing; others it leaves
Nothing to be said.

by Ben Jonson
VIII. ? ON A ROBBERY.       RIDWAY robb'd DUNCOTE of three hundred pound,     Ridway was ta'en, arraign'd, condemn'd to die ; But, for this money, was a courtier found,     Begg'd Ridway's pardon :  Duncote now doth cry, Robb'd both of money, and the law's relief,     ? The courtier is become the greater thief.?   

by Richard Brautigan
 This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard
Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is unknown.

By accident, you put
Your money in my
Machine (#4)
By accident, I put
My money in another
Machine (#6)
On purpose, I put
Your clothes in the 
Empty machine full
Of water and no
Clothes

It was lonely.

by Du Fu
Grain path poplar blossom pave white carpet Little stream lotus leaves piled green money Bamboo shoot root sprout no person see Sand on duckling beside mother sleep
The path is paved with poplar catkins, a carpet of white grain, Lotus leaves on the little stream are piled like green coins. Among the roots of new bamboo, sprouts that no man has seen, On the sand nearby, a duckling sleeps beside its mother.

by Amy Lowell
 Outside the long window,
With his head on the stone sill,
The dog is lying,
Gazing at his Beloved.
His eyes are wet and urgent,
And his body is taut and shaking.
It is cold on the terrace;
A pale wind licks along the stone slabs,
But the dog gazes through the glass
And is content.
The Beloved is writing a letter.
Occasionally she speaks to the dog,
But she is thinking of her writing.
Does she, too, give her devotion to one
Not worthy?

by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man of Kilkenny,Who never had more than a penny;He spent all that money in onions and honey,That wayward Old Man of Kilkenny.

by Omar Khayyam
Ask not the chances of the time to be,
And for the past, 'tis vanished, as you see;
This ready-money breath set down as gain,
Future and past concern not you or me.

by Geoffrey Hill
 King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the
M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at
Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh
Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates:
saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist: the
friend of Charlemagne.

'I liked that,' said Offa, 'sing it again.'

by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Villain shows his indiscretion,
Villain's partner makes confession.
Juvenile, with golden tresses,
Finds her pa and dons long dresses.
Scapegrace comes home money-laden,
Hero comforts tearful maiden,
Soubrette marries loyal chappie,
Villain skips, and all are happy.

by Carl Sandburg
 I AM a copper wire slung in the air,
Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow.
Night and day I keep singing--humming and thrumming:
It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the
tears, the work and want,
Death and laughter of men and women passing through
me, carrier of your speech,
In the rain and the wet dripping, in the dawn and the
shine drying,
A copper wire.

by Robert Herrick
 When all birds else do of their music fail,
Money's the still-sweet-singing nightingale!

by Mother Goose
If I'd as much money as I could spend,I never would cry old chairs to mend;Old chairs to mend, old chairs to mend;I never would cry old chairs to mend.If I'd as much money as I could tell,I never would cry old clothes to sell;Old clothes to sell, old clothes to sell;I never would cry old clothes to sell. 

by Walt Whitman
 WHAT you give me, I cheerfully accept, 
A little sustenance, a hut and garden, a little money—these, as I rendezvous with my
 poems; 
A traveler’s lodging and breakfast as I journey through The States—Why should I
 be
 ashamed to own such gifts? Why to advertise for them? 
For I myself am not one who bestows nothing upon man and woman; 
For I bestow upon any man or woman the entrance to all the gifts of the universe. 

 5

by Mother Goose
  Sing a song of sixpence,   A pocket full of rye;Four-and-twenty blackbirds   Baked in a pie!When the pie was opened   The birds began to sing;Was not that a dainty dish   To set before the king?The king was in his counting-house,   Counting out his money;The queen was in the parlor,   Eating bread and honey.The maid was in the garden,   Hanging out the clothes;When down came a blackbird   And snapped off her nose.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things