1.
Money grows the way stars die, and stars die
the way hearts beat: white-dwarf systole, red-
giant diastole keeping up the flow
of capital to capillaries lined with the same
porous silk as a day trader’s pockets.
Time is cyclic. Come again? Crime is cyclic,
sure as a white collar is round. Rhyme,
by contrast, is the repetition of a sound:
Cha-ching will pair convincingly
with anything, so long as the prospectus
has smiling old people on the outside
and a color pie-chart, a graph of Projected
versus Actual, a list of funds (boldface;
baldfaced), and a Big Dipper of disclaiming
asterisks in each of its heart-of-gold’s
four chambers. What they will be dipping
into: Largely your retirement, but also
a hot tub somewhere off the coast of where
you thought you might vacation someday. Rub
a dub dub: these men in pinstripes are the stars,
the heartthrobs money loves, the actors who make
money’s heart go boom-bust: lub-dub: nova

2.
Moolah, daulat of our idolatry, mother’s milk
And father of strife (alias Daddy Warbucks, alias
Almighty Dallah), the bread and the dough, love’s
Leaven, greenback lifeleaf,

Monad, in this era Anno Denomini
Your names without number—euro, rupee, or
Riyal, divided, subdivided unto the utmost
Farthing, given and taken, yea, yen-yuan,

Real mother, material, royal matter
(One capital, countless crowns), falsehood
All reales, truth through bullion, quid

Pro quo, golden meaningless, intangible bringing
All in reach, weightless pound, killer-diller dollar,
Beloved: big, hot, fast, black, easy, dirty, blood.