On Reading at Dewey Square October 27 2011

That day it felt good to stand in the 40-degree rain in Dewey Square – a kind of solidarity-in-misery with Occupy Boston. The rain was persistent, but had a feeling of equality as it fell fairly on the 1% as well as the 99%.

Organized by Peter Desmond, Robyn-Su Miller and Susie Davidson, poets contributed their verses to the protest at 2pm each day of the fourth week of the occupation. Alice Weiss was the featured poet on Thursday October 27th, and led off with a dedicated poem, “Dewey Square.” I read my poem for the occasion, “The Bankers’ Song.” Another dozen poets read their poems of resistance, inequality and distress.

There was no thunderous response, the One-Percenters didn’t quake and renounce their wealth, no unemployed found immediate work, and Congress didn’t unite around the needs of the nation. The Occupiers just occupied their tents and the two yellow-slickered police shifted glumly in their heavy brogans. There was only the rain-muffled clapping of cold wet hands and a few warm smiles – mainly of the poets themselves. No bang, hardly a whimper.

So standing in the rain, why did this reading feel good to me? Why does it still feel good at the laptop in my warm house? It has to do with taking a stand, making a statement about me, mainly to myself I suppose. I have moved out from the middle, from the independents, from the uncommitted to take a position that too-big-to-failers need to be accountable for taking too much risk, that it is not OK for the 99% to falter while the 1% prospers, that America can do better.

Behind the sometimes microphone in Dewey Square, hung a soggy sign taped to the granite walls of the exhaust duct for the sunken South East Expressway: “We are the majority, we will not be silenced.” That wet afternoon, no one tried to silence us and few even listened, but I was able to hear what I have to say.

The Very Hungry Bank

with appreciation for Eric Carle’s caterpillar

One sunny morning before Dewey Square
was financial, there appeared - pop! –
a tiny and very hungry bank.

In 1991, BayBank acquired Harvard Trust
but the bank was still hungry

In 1996, BankBoston acquired BayBank
but the bank was still hungry.

In 1999, FleetBank acquired BankBoston
but the bank was still hungry.

In 2004, Bank of America (itself acquired
by NationsBank) acquired FleetBank
but the bank was still hungry.

In the next years, the bank acquired one
MBNA, one Banco Itau, one US Trust, one
LaSalle Bank, one Countrywide and one
Merrill Lynch.

That year the bank had a stomach ache. Now
it wasn't a tiny little bank any more. It was a big
fat bank. It built a forty-five billion dollar safety net

called a TARP around itself, and stayed inside for a number
of months. Then it nibbled a hole in the TARP, and pushed
its way out. Alas, it was not a beautiful butterfly.