Derek Mong
my inner pragmatist insists: we can’t fling Phelps’s medals
like skipping stones! and
I’ll keep my wedding ring. It just might clog a filter. Selfish?
Sure, but wealth rides bull
markets, not some golden adage. This leaves us like Scrooge McDuck
or frantic, poor, and hungry. Dear Goldilocks, gimme some hot
porridge, gimme some
cold porridge, just make damn sure it’s my supper. I don’t wanna
share it. In preschool
I learned ownership (my stocks? fruit snacks, blocks) till banks baffled me
with compound interest: how does a piggy bank buy a Wilbur?
My doomsayer says
What’s it matter? We’re wheeling dough up in shopping carts but can’t
bring home the bacon!
He’s half right, and outraged. Let’s strike the bell-ringer’s red bucket
with our silver spoons, then march the tune poolside. Let’s ladle out
a billion teaspoons
bullion. Let’s dip and redistribute wealth, till there’s no more
popes or chariots—
no Golden Globes splitting land from TV Land or the have-golds
from the have-nots. We’d be suddenly equal if equally
hungry, huddled like
alchemists around our rocks, trying to subsist on shimmer.
Dear Midas, what can
that finger, gilder of sporks and infant sons, teach us? That you—
handcuffed and fed through gerbil tubes—can save us? We’d brush chocolate
bars across your hands.
You’d soften future financial meltdowns. O Gary Gildner,
O Gilda Radner,
O Montana-era 49ers—we know our want gave
this metal worth, but tell me you’ve unearthed a plan, some golden
egg or parachute
to save us? My inner aesthete thinks consumer confidence
will rise if we all
wear artisanal haloes. My inner elder says, let’s save
it for our golden years, give 24K teeth in lieu
of pensions. Oh my
glib split selves. Ponder these quandaries: 1) gold’s proxies prevent us
from paying grocers
in poetry, while 2) we lipo the stuff from streams and mountains!
Dear Jacques Costeau, help us deep-six this gold swimming pool; Oh Trump
do you keep receipts?
Those cufflinks belong to the Himalayas! Such pleas qualify
as shovel-ready
stimuli. We’ll hire folks to bury gold. We’ll promote wealth’s new
cost-benefit equation: bars lugged × hours dug =
profit. Call it “El
Dorado’s Repo 2009.” Grab one bucket smelted
krugerrands. Grab a pick. You’re a conquistador’s worst nightmare.
_________________________________________
About the poem, Derek Mong writes:
"When Jon Stewart excoriated Jim Cramer on The Daily Show, he made sure to remind Cramer--and all of us in the process--that there would be no end to boom and bust economics until we accepted the premise that profit = hard work + time. Stewart's point finds its way into this poem's moral center, as do numerous gold puns and pop-culture nuggets. Likewise an unusual syllabic pattern (long lines of 15 syllables, followed by short ones of 5) that remind me of cashing in a $20 bill."
_________________________________________
About the poem, Derek Mong writes:
"When Jon Stewart excoriated Jim Cramer on The Daily Show, he made sure to remind Cramer--and all of us in the process--that there would be no end to boom and bust economics until we accepted the premise that profit = hard work + time. Stewart's point finds its way into this poem's moral center, as do numerous gold puns and pop-culture nuggets. Likewise an unusual syllabic pattern (long lines of 15 syllables, followed by short ones of 5) that remind me of cashing in a $20 bill."
Excellent poem! Beautiful artistry, evocative language, just perfect!
ReplyDelete