Note: Inspired by reading my 401-K Statement. Picture stolen from Folon, my favorite modern artist, modified to fit the poem. Somehow, I thought that this would make me feel better. Alas. [for edscan]
A Penny for This Old Guy
We are the bankrupt men
We are the leveraged men
Leaning together
Portolios filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our empty vaults.
Financial instruments without form, collateral with no value,
Paralysed assets, banks without liquidity;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to Chapter 7
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
creditless souls, but only
As the bankrupt men
The abandoned men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In Wall Street's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a faded column of figures
There, is an investment banker swinging
And investors voices
In the wind, singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading Eurodollar.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
derivative, credit swap, REIT, turbo warrant
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final Board meeting
In the twilight kingdom of the Masters of the Universe.
III
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken dreams of home ownership.
IV
In this, Congress, the last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of duck and cover.
Sightless, unless
The votes reappear
As the perpetual caucus
Multifoliate rows
Of dead legislation,
The hope only
Of empty, soulless Congressmen.
V
Here we go round the campaign trail,
the campaign trail, the campaign trail,
Here we go round the campaign trail,
til five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Self Interest
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the proposal
And the response
Falls the Self Interest
Life is very long. Political Life is short.
Between the desire
And the vote
Between the banker
And the bank note
Between the People
And the descent
Falls the Self Interest
For Thine is the Kingdom of Recrimination
For Thine are the Hopes of an Anguished Nation
This is the way the economy ends
This is the way the retirement ends
This is the way the hope ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
PS: Don't worry. I ain't jumping. I have some serious drinking to do and many asses to kick yet.
6:50 p.m. - off to my stool. Will pick this up later. Regards to all