Sad Money — Summary

I had sad money and a din of debts all night, things that come to wait: the sun on ice, a pretend home on foot.

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

The speaker is lying awake with money worries, and the poem turns that feeling into something strange and almost physical. "Sad money" is an odd phrase: the money isn't just short, it carries a mood, as if the cash itself shares the speaker's gloom. The "din of debts all night" makes the worry loud and crowded, the kind of noise that won't let anyone sleep.

Then the poem shifts to images that seem to sit beside the debts: "the sun on ice" and "a pretend home on foot." Both are things "that come to wait." Sun on ice suggests light with no real warmth, something bright but cold, which might echo how little comfort the speaker finds. A "pretend home on foot" is harder to pin down, but it could suggest a feeling of being unsettled, carrying a makeshift sense of home while moving, with nowhere secure.

The mood is quiet, uneasy, and a little bleak, though the images give it an eerie beauty.

Read also

More by Dave Bonta

All poems
ContemplativeDave Bonta

Plea bargain

I hear half a beat of drum to serve time have half a hope in the meantime praise God
DreamyDave Bonta

Cibola 3

I awake in the dark and shake free of sheets & blankets, of down-filled quilt. The rituals of waking– the long, hot shower, the coffee–give
ContemplativeDave Bonta

In good light

On a maple’s pale bark, a zigzag ladder—old tooth-marks from a wandering snail? Green islands of moss