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.

The Bankers' Song

Take a mortgage, equity loan
enjoy yourself, it's just your home.
Spend it through our debit card
the terms are easy, it's not hard.

It's only paper, play the game
we'll package yours with more the same
and sell them to some naive folks
then sell short this cruel hoax.

Now if you fail and need salvation
we profit big, go on vacation
chuckling that the whole thing's legal
because the Feds repealed Glass-Steagall.

If, perchance, our math is wrong
we'll sing to Congress our sad song
fly there in our private jets
and ask for public safety nets.

None of us will go to jail
it's private pay and public bail.
We banks are just too big to fail
it's private pay and public bail.

Magi

"...no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation"
TS Eliot, The Journey of the Magi

One tree only in our house, decorated
with tinsel and tradition. Eliot’s Magi
saw three trees and an old white horse
that galloped away leaving them
uncertain about birth or death.

This dawn in our house, Jesus sleeps
and the Magi are mute, so I hear
invitation in the poet’s soliloquy
and cannot be innocent. Quiet
and disquiet won’t remain. Arriving

are not Kings, but the bustle of family
and a new grandchild. We celebrate
innocence, giving, wonder. Our day
clamors with happy unwrapping
the clatter of dishes and love. Still

in the evening, I don’t leave with the Magi
transformed and glad of another death. Skeptical
I slip from the poet’s god as the poet’s voice
slips from me until it is just an uneasy
murmur of hearing and disbelief.

The Holiday Letter

Often pictures, mostly prose
How do they choose what they expose -

The births and dogs and college choices,
Sports awards, cherubic voices;

Kids are perfect, health is great,
One has found the ideal mate;

They’ve travel to some scenic dell
Or sometimes had the trip from hell;

New grandparents who boast out loud
That reproduction makes them proud;

It’s not all joy, sometimes there’s doubting,
True confessions, subtle outing;

She’s been hurt and he’s addicted,
Painful cries of souls conflicted;

Death of hamsters, flushed goldfishes
Mixed in with the holiday wishes -

These letters, yearly rights of pen,
Are Facebook for the older gen.

Around The Block

after A. R. Ammons “The City Limits”
http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15225

Walk with me around the block where we have lived
for two dogs, four cats and two children; if you wish,
we can take our old dog and young granddaughter;

our friend next door is divorced, her children
are at college and she is creating her new life; a doctor
lived here who was kind to me, and changed himself

to a woman; Regina, the horse, lived fifty-two years
in this pasture; in this house, a Halloween hot wax
bowl made ghostly duplicate hands; once the St. Bernard visited

and shocked our kitten who attached to his nose
like the sausage in The Three Wishes; before their graduations,
children skated this pond, sledded our hill; our son’s friend

enemy friend lived on this corner; across the street,
our daughter’s friend moved away; a lawyer and his wife
live around the next corner with their grandchildren

like us, and tough-love addicted children like us; the poet
beyond the turn is my mentor; once the dog who lived
here grieved our dog’s loss, but she is gone; over there

the curmudgeon bachelor made a home for lost children
and stray animals, he and his house are gone but a coyote
lives there; around the corner up the hill, the ancient

from Harvard carved a stone for his wife in woods
he lets us walk, he now believes conspiracies; it’s not
too steep, then we are home, then we are home.

Hello

Newspapers wait

at monogrammed gates

of the big house

across the street

where big trucks

arrived worked

announced their reversals

making the house perfect

for three who moved in

and locked the gates

The Derby

He
grasps line, doubles
rod – feels male, more
competition than dalliance. Hoping,
daring, challenged by The Derby,
alone, off-shore, naive sea
peace. Big one testing
our filament.
Spooling,
tighten drag,
don’t line out, turning,
retrieving. Turns away,
against drag, against tide.
Reverse boat, clumsy chase
backward, not steering, reeling,
tip up, tip up. Spool out,
back boat, reel in.
Dark
shadow,
what’s that? Dorsal
fin, great rolling belly,
white belly, half boat length,
boat length away. Skin plucks
taut line, nervous both ends. My
fish, goddammit, him and me, not you!
Awkward maneuver boat, fish,
shark. Lazy arrogance,
shark continues,
seals ahead.
Hour,
no give, line
binds, 7,000-pound boat,
unweighed fish, 12-pound
test. Must be big, Derby winner,
picture taken, little speech,
Hemmingway. Con-
centrate.
Half
hour,
arms tired – he
must be tired. Raise
him? No. Spool out,
hard to back, wind slaps
stern, sea peace gone, gusts
coming. Run again, waves top
stern, not safe. Pay attention.
What are we going to do here, fish?
He
lets go.
No tug, snap,
just release, simple easy,
end of handshake – good game,
sport. Game over, rewind line,
seaweed. Was that it,
just weed?
No
one
watched, I
never saw him. Hope
pride, imagination? Gone,
he didn’t get lure, I didn’t
get him, nor shark. No
trophy, no pictures,
nothing but
poem.