Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be

The day is coming
The end of money; of coins and notes
The end of worthless tokens and vouchers
The cheap metal and printed paper
That we value so highly

Look and you will see evidence
Advertising: Cash is spent

Listen and you will hear evidence
Radio 4: fingerprint scans for kid’s school dinners

No more money – what will we do?

Worry not,
About that anyway,
For we have a new system being introduced

So if money is to be no more
What then is the score?

Deeper into the belly of the beast we go
And the beast is a machine
And the machine is a beast

There will be a future day
When you’ll use your finger to pay

Your finger bones connected to your hand bone
Your hand bones connected to your wrist bone
Your wrist bones connected to your arm bone

On and on:
All the way along to the head bone: the skull
And what resides these days inside the skull
A grey sponge full of myriad confusions
And unsatisfying desires

And when you finger-scan yourself aboard
The New Titanic, for your luxury cruise to hell
Enjoy the splendour
The comfy furniture
The personal TV’s
The waiter service
Bringing you champagne & finely cooked flesh
But don’t look for the lifeboats or life-jackets
When the boat begins to sink:
They were left on shore

The place we are moving away from;
The natural world
Togetherness
Humanity
Love:
The most precious thing we are losing

Neither a borrower nor a lender be:

Have we borrowed our modern values from demons?
Have we lent our sacred spirits to sinister con-men?

Neither a borrower nor a lender be:

What happened to giving?

Selling or taking or taking or selling?

Have we sold our souls to take our fill?
Have we borrowed our appetites for objects and flesh?
Our appetites for destruction?

Are you going to borrow the means?
To keep buying what is sold?
To keep believing what you’re told?
By men with dark hearts,
And darker objectives?

Are you going to lend your human sovereignty?
To take a seat on the boat?
To sail away past the horizon of humanity?
To sink deeper and deeper into the sickness?
Until you reach rock bottom

Don’t be a haunted skeleton
Be a human
Don’t lock away the bounty
Of love and compassion
Inside your treasures chests

Give it all away - that is the only way
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.