Money, and paying dues

I sometimes wonder if this little planet, black ball of watered stone
Spinning madly twixt unnumbered stars
Can stand the weight of one more numbered bill
Accounting to ourselves how power rises, falls, collapses, careens
And the like

We count the road these days to Armageddon - not in signs,
Portents, omens, prophets
But in pennies
Each one stretched between Beijing, Tehran, Paris, Washington
Like little wires of here and there

Spinning continents into a crazy quilt,
Unlovely, full of inexplications and surprise
As if the wealth of all this globe
Could be marshalled into 

A smallish shoe of space
Kicked and beholden
To no man
But due and payable

All the same - 
Fire and flame, bomb and bullet, scream and silence,
Paying dues... not knowing why... or to whom... 
Or ever what comes next..