Monopoly

Monopoly

It's almost time for the new hotel
to go up on the Boardwalk in "Monopoly."
The family is playing with an electric train.
There are pellets of smoke.
The romance of trains is over but they don't know it.
There are different ships: ocean liners,
cruisers, destroyers, aircraft carriers, and
each is beautiful though all will soon be obsolete.
No one cries for a fifty-year-old orphan.

When I play "Monopoly," I pick a hat, the mad hat.
The best strategy is to control the green and yellow
and red properties and build houses and hotels on them.
It's a real estate approach to capitalism
which is good as far as it goes but leaves out the superstructural
stuff, like the feminine scent in the bathroom.

In conclusion, "Monopoly" is a very fun game
though an imperfect representation of capitalism in action,
and it may even be said to be
to board games what Beethoven is to symphonies.