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.

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