The poem
Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me: 'Why do you let me lie here wastefully? I am all you never had of goods and sex, You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'
So I look at others, what they do with theirs: They certainly don't keep it upstairs. By now they've a second house and car and wife: Clearly money has something to do with life
- In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire: You can't put off being young until you retire, And however you bank your screw, the money you save Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.
I listen to money singing. It's like looking down From long French windows at a provincial town, The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.
the entire poem is set in rhyming couplets.He uses the same list techique in the last stanze eg "the slums, the canal.." as he did in "To the Sea".
"bank your screw" refers to putting your wages in the bank, and the "shave" could be referred to the shave you get from the mortician when you are dead, basically to make you look good in the coffin.
"shave" actually refers to the inflation caused in the banks during that period of time - surely that is obvious when talking about money??