Money as Water

MONEY AS WATER
-Kurt Brown

"Cash flow" "liquid assets" "pooling our resources"-
it's clear that money falls from heaven,
drops in pennies, nickels, dimes, to gather
in the small depressions of our hands.
It's clear how profit swells and streams of money
merge, how waves of money move
through nations, cause a "rippling effect"
and soon recede. How some people
drown, while others stay afloat and keep their heads
above the flood. How banks are "bailed out"
like wounded ships and panic follows,
bubbles burst, small investors find it hard
to breathe. It's clear how money
passes through our hands like water,
and our sources, once dried up, leave us
thirsting after more. How funds
diverted, often vanish, and those without a "safety net"
go "belly up." How all we have
goes down the drain, and we get soaked.




The semiotics of this poem are intriguing. Using cliches in poems, which are, by definition, language that is not cliche, serves to draw attention to the language we do use every day. That makes it so that this poem can live in our daily lives, which is something that few poems seem to be able to do. I enjoyed this, as it functions not only as a surrealistic exercise in visualization, but also as a meditation on our economic system.