Holy Tuesday: Money

Out of the melting pot, into the mint;

next news I was loose change for a Leeds pimp,

burning a hole in his skin-tight pocket

till he tipped a busker by the precinct.

Not the most ceremonious release

for a fresh faced coin cutting its teeth.

But that's my point: if you're poorly bartered

you're scuppered before you've even started.

My lowest ebb was a seven month spell

spent head down in a wishing well,

half eclipsed by an oxidized tuppence

which impressed me with its green circumference.

When they fished me out I made a few phone calls,

fed a few meters, hung round the pool halls.

I slotted in well, but all that vending

blunted my edges and did my head in.

Once I came within an ace of the end

on the stern of a North Sea Ferry, when

some half-cut, ham-fisted cockney tossed me

up into the air and almost dropped me

and every transaction flashed before me

like a time lapse autobiography.

Now, just the thought of travel by water

lifts the serrations around my border.

Some day I know I'll be bagged up and sent

to that knacker's yard for the over-spent

to be broken, boiled, unmade and replaced,

for my metals to go their separate ways…

which is sad. All coins have dreams. Some castings

from my own batch, I recall, were hatching

an exchange scam on the foreign market

and some inside jobs on one arm bandits.

My own ambition? Well, that was simple:

to be flipped in Wembley's centre circle,

to twist, to turn, to hang like a planet,

to touch down on that emerald carpet.

Those with faith in the system say 'don't quit,

bide your time, if you're worth it, you'll make it.'

But I was robbed, I was badly tendered.

I could have scored. I could have contended.

‘Ten Pence Story’ 

Simon Armitage

A cacophony of shouts advertising the best rates of exchange are suddenly silenced by the clatter of cascading coins as tables fall to the floor.

In the midst of the small huddle of Priests there is an outraged agreement, then a furtive clink behind the soldier’s back into the outstretched hand.

I lived on the shady side of the road and watched my neighbours’
gardens across the way reveling in the sunshine.

I felt I was poor, and from door to door went with my hunger.

The more they gave me from their careless abundance
the more I became aware of my beggar’s bowl.

Till one morning I awoke from my sleep at the sudden opening of my door,
and you came and asked for alms.

In despair I broke the lid of my chest open and
was startled into finding my own wealth.

'On the shady side'

Tagore

clink. (IPhone image)