Poetry about greediness often explores the corrosive impact of excessive desire and materialistic tendencies. The poet uses stark, vivid imagery to portray the insatiable nature of greed, capturing the destructive path it often leaves in its wake.
These verses can be unsettling, reflecting on the hollow emptiness that greed often leads to. Such poems serve as a stark warning to the reader, cautioning against the perils of unchecked desire.
‘Velocity Of Money’ by Allen Ginsberg uses irony and satire to make a powerful critique on the forces of capitalism.
I’m delighted by the velocity of money as it whistles through the windows
of Lower East Side
Delighted by skyscrapers rising the old grungy apartments falling on
84th Street
‘Cahoots’ by Carl Sandburg delves into the dark underbelly of a corrupt city, exposing the collusion and exploitation that thrive within its power structures.
Play it across the table.
What if we steal this city blind?
If they want any thing let 'em nail it down.
Harness bulls, dicks, front office men,
‘Portrait of Zimri’ by John Dryden is a political satire that showcases how people in power can be consumed by hollow and pretentious self interest.
Some of their chiefs were princes of the land:
In the first rank of these did Zimri stand:
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome.
‘They Feed They Lion’ by Philip Levine is a powerful poem that visualizes a scene of apocalyptic proportions. It was inspired by the aftermath of the 1967 Detroit riots.
Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
Amid opulent bills and undersea dreams, Kumin’s ‘Spree’ unveils family conflicts and materialistic illusions with evocative language.
My father paces the upstairs hall
a large confined animal
neither wild nor yet domesticated.
About him hangs the smell of righteous wrath.
‘Chocolate Cake’ by Michael Rosen is an upbeat children’s poem that describes a child’s lack of control when it comes to his favorite dessert.
I love chocolate cake.
And when I was a boy
I loved it even more.
Amy Lowell’s ‘Chinoiseries’ is an ekphrastic poem depicting the engravings on chinoiserie pottery. Lowell’s speaker gets lost in the art as if it is the eyes of her loved one.
‘Gold!’ by Thomas Hood is a piece about the corrupting nature of gold. It focuses on the duality of the substance. It can save but, it can also doom the person seeking it out.
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold
Molten, graven, hammered and rolled,
Heavy to get and light to hold,
‘In the Desert’ by Stephen Crane is a popular short poem that presents readers with a strange scenario. The poem speaks on human nature through a disturbing image of self-destruction.
‘The Butterfly and the Bee’ is a children’s poem written by the English poet William Lisle Bowles. This poem contrasts the life of a bee and that of a butterfly.
Methought I heard a butterfly
Say to a labouring bee:
'Thou hast no colours of the sky
On painted wings like me.'
‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’ by Robert Browning is an entertaining poem about the importance of telling the truth and keeping one’s promises.
Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
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