Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Wizards of Wall Street

Mordor Financial District
In their dark towers
they waved their hands
over books and keyboards,
transforming the essence of things
into numbers and values
and then into commodities,
bought and sold,
bought and sold.
 
Through secret rivers
on maps only they saw
flowed the work of others
to their dark pools
"One CDO to rule them all."

that fed this private alchemy.
The empty ranch house in Atlanta
became the week in St. Barts.
The auctioned condo in Las Vegas:
a shiny black Audi.
The boarded-up duplex in Chicago:
botox and implants.

But the land is drained
and secret rivers are dry.

What now for the dark towers?

+++

This is my contribution to the poetry blog project "99 Poems for the 99 Percent" by my friend and award-winning poet Dean Rader.  According to Dean's site: "Since Walt Whitman, American poetry has been about democracy. It's been about reaching people on issues they care about in a voice they recognize."

1 comment:

  1. I thought your "Wizards of Wall Street" poem was pretty awesome. I know I'm not thinking quite along the exact same lines you were when you composed it, but, it makes me think of a quote by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 where he had said...

    "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered..."

    I'll definitely have to check out your friend Dean's site... sounds kind of like he has a similar perspective to what Ernst Fischer had when he stated, "In a decaying society, Art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable... and help it to change.

    Yep, I'm a sucker for a good quote...

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