Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
we gathered in a lighted tower
of a lower Manhattan promontory
seminarians listen
to discursive ramblings
of bank industry experts
on the finer points of
Basel II
Tier Three
op risk

towards a better better
best practice
we pique our ears to hear
the critical
dispassionate annunciations
of expert expertise

a panel of practitioners
a panoply of knowledge
networking opportunities
and hands on insight
we are granted
institutional affirmation
nesting warmly
in a corporate cocoon
13 flights up
off West Street
10 bucks a seat
30 for non-members

we settle
in soulless white rooms
divided by long
horizontal wall panels
bleached of all humanity
visualizing phantasmagoric vistas
of changing regulatory landscapes
in strait backed chairs
resembling the blanco armor acrylics
of Imperial Stormtroopers

on watch for Black Swans
the panel's moderator incants
if one appears
we told you so
if one fails to materialize
risk managers
have earned their dear keep
seminarians chuckle

the dais backdrop
a massive SONY plasma screen
stares down seminarians
with ruminative bleakness.
no digital blips or power points
will convey any meaning
turn a clever phrase
sprout a statistic
paint a pretty picture,
just the plain spoken word
of highly credentialed
speakers with bios
many paragraphs long
confers license to speak

the screens blackness
a perfect counter point
to a rooms spare whiteness
and pedestrian furbishment
save a day glow Warhol Print
of the heroic MTV moon walker
and a predominant majority
of Far Eastern attendees

questions from the floor
drizzle the panel
tied tongues
use tight selective language
of lexiconic colloquialisms
speaking a queer vernacular
of erudite bombastic bunk

questions are mumbled
with increasingly greater acuity
dancing around bank meltdowns
and global economic catastrophes
with a self anointed smug absolution
and poignant failure to acknowledge
a failures paternity
pink elephants and 800 pound gorillas
remain dance hall wallflowers


to be sure language evolves
the moderator instructs
as regulatory guidelines converge
to address market flux.
Is everyone comfortable with
the current acronyms
we devised
to describe our
present situation
best laid plans
and timely initiatives
to safeguard capital adequacy
and institutional solvency
right here in our own
little tower of Babel?

My tie is too tight
to clear my throat
I can't ask my question
of apples to apples
dust to dust
and oranges to tangerines
while the halting speech of others
is broken up
by timely ring tones
from Jeopardy
and Gene Autry's
Don't Fence Me In

every once in awhile
a chuckle is raised
we laugh about the score
in this inside baseball game
of capital requirements
regulatory Nexis
and smart *** traders
plying bold arbitrage strategies
blowing us back to Basel I
after the global bank implosion
oh the hilarity
of credit crises and crashes
the jokes on us
the joke-sters R US

some begin to
urgently finger blackberries
sending confident commands
to be dutifully carried out
by young back office minions
impatiently waiting
hanging on every word
of unintelligible texts
eagerly biding time
to take
the solid senders warm seat
in these cold blanched rooms

Closing the seminar
the moderator's summation
offered the thought
that her fondest hope remains
scenario analysis,
stress testing
and the new
emerging paradigms
will become
embedded in
risk management
best practices
and that fewer regulators
will be needed to regulate
and we will continue
to be employed
(nervous chuckles)
clapping
reception for networking
to follow
questions
and
cocktails
in the next room

I move quickly
to fill my plate with brie
English tea crackers
and a smoky tangy cheese.
A fellow seminarian
approaches me.
He smiles and asks,
Whats your name?
What do you do?
I tell him
and ask the same.
He says he is 50
and unemployed.
He sounds unsure
and frightened.
I bite into a chunk
of exotic cheese.
******* crumbs fall
onto the lapel
of my freshly pressed
pinstripe suit.

Music Selection:
Miles Davis
Red China Blues

jbm
NYC
03/03/09
January thirteenth two thousand
and nineteen will complete
mine third score orbitz round the sun,
who as a youth evinced

demure and effete
traits, and now weathered, Ongepatshket,
and plenty seasoned,
I feel ready to greet
a garrulous, humorous, and indecorous

Shikse for an indiscreet
liaison, where she will
get reddit to shutterfly,
and twitter like an uber keet
oozing with NON GMO

gluten and monosodium
glutimate saccharine dripping
with au naturale oversweet
ample ***** shapely waist,
and derriere replete

with plenty of junk in the trunk
cavorting, flirting, and issuing manumission
to fraternize, friskily frolic
fruitfully mixing bedlam with bunk
sundering politesse as a "FAKE",
gentlemanly, and honorable hunk,

when in truth,...this lapsed (Lou Zoo Lee)
christened nebish lunk
bookish, loutish, and wonkish teasing
seminarian formerly seclusive monk
keying into my inner philanderer,
yeah...yeah...yeah overdrunk

with prurient fantasies donning an imitation
of (guess who), one
narcissistic trumpeting punk
at heart my idol, no matter the teetering
ship of state he nearly countersunk,
which purportedly mirrors

his Wharton curriculum vitae,
which...well showed he nearly did flunk
apprenticed as POTUS with
FLOTUS attractive trophy
wife (number three) female chunk

and,...oh yes aesthetically
pleasing female real estate
from appearances marriage
barren and devoid of great
je nais sais quois,

though Melania rarely irate,
and partial government shutdown of late
reverberating with fallout, that does oscillate
furloughed federal employees to perspire
principally at increased amortization rate.
Presents the following slapdash
higglety-pigglety bupkis, whereby reader
experiences being mentally hogtied
perusing pseudo poetic perambulation
devoid of sense and sensibility
welcoming character assassination
concerning pride of yours truly,
who merely strung together
words sharing "arian"

as their last five letters
for no particular rhyme nor reason
quite aware that forced gobbledygook
underwrites storied reputation
of unnamed aspiring author
cramming nonsense linkedin
jibber-jabber hodgepodge fashion
deplorable basketed mumbo jumbo
giving pop slop a run for its' money.

Yours truly considers himself
(courtesy obsessive compulsive fixation
with alphabetization even when dreaming
counting sheep jumping
over figurative fence by first name)
drawn toward being abecedarian,
albeit hankers being agrarian, yet
I consider myself suburban simian
(a garden variety **** sapiens)
no more significant than alcyonarian

expressing his antiauthoritarian,
intolerance toward antiegalitarian,
antihumanitarian, antilibertarian,
agog over antiquarian tomes
replete with antitotalitarian manifesto
buzzfeeding ma (zee papa's)
sixty plus shades of gray,
cuz hive got news for you
courtesy doxy me, a generic erudite apiarian,
non-aquarian, once mighty araucarian,

(when during Jurassic and Cretaceous periods
our family achieved maximum diversity
distributed across almost entire
webbed wide world), nevertheless
one humble wordsmith
decries authoritarian, barbarian, Cesarean
segmentation of rooted centenarian elders
strongly resembling cnidarians,
who foster communitarian, contrarian
culinarian, disciplinarian,

disestablishmentarianism
decrees expatiating dogmatic,
emphatic, idealistic duly strict ethos
incorporating freedom of the press
documentarian, egalitarian
establishmentarian, filarian favoring fruitarian
disavowing jump/kickstaring futilitarian endeavors
administering grammarian, hereditarian,
questioning humanitarian
versus inegalitarian paradigms

celebrating progressive legislation
courtesy coterie as Democratic jubilarian
attributing insights to sustenance
comprising Diet of Worms
and laminarian, which boosts rock ribbed
lapidarian, libertarian, librarian lunarian,
who dons gay apparel and trumpets
majoritarian fly in the ointment milarian
espousing millenarian credo,
whereby absent free will necessitarian

forces at large effect staid
senior citizens, especially nonagenarian,
advocating nonauthoritarian, bookish nonlibrarian
nonsectarian, nontotalitarian, nonutilitarian,
beefy nonutilitarian, nonvegetarian,
and octogenarian brethren,
begat in part courtesy
ovarian haploid gamete,
which offspring could trend toward
ovolactovegetarian maybe collecting

parian ware adornments
pricey merchandise afforded
courtesy parliamentarian income
sessions conducted (without resistance),
whereby officials closely resemble
blood ******* planarian ceaselessly
patting each other
(and themselves) on the back
congratulating exulting,
gushing ala Old Faithful platitudinarian

attributing their foibles to postlapsarian
forebears awaiting salvation postmillenarian
bags already packed eagerly awaiting
deliverance into seventh heaven
as promised by divine predestinarian
a time analogous to virtuous age
of innocence re: prelapsarian
or lost souls peopling congress
and house of representatives
purportedly official do bidding

for proletarian class of population
once upon bajillion years
in the past initial life forms
similar to radiolarian
propelled themselves thru primordial sea
after lapse of eons diverse riparian organisms
with nary a hint of vocations such as
rosarian, sanitarian, sectarian seminarian
dedicated worker still going strong
as septuagenarian, or sexagenarian.
Although the following poetic/prosaic material written January eighteenth two thousand and eighteen, I came across these encapsulated, enclosed, encoded, and encrusted with barnacle clad body electric of my trademark crafted gobbledygook today January third two thousand and twenty three.  
     Though the heyday and stellar popularity didst long since wane, I still enjoy listening to select song titles (to many for listing here along this virtual boulevard of broken dream) of this iconic Punk Rock band unique rapid fire machine gun punctuated trademark style still induces goosebumps IF only because my eldest daughter used to be a rabid fan.
     She even voluntarily recruited this papa (and asked me in her coy, diminutive, earnestly irresistible purring kitty cat demeanor if yours truly could taxi herself, and one or more best buddies, (whom she keeps in regular communication to this Green Day) to the the theatrical performance “American Idiot” being shown on Broadway. Hence I rented a vehicle, and nervously hightailed into the core of the Big Apple for the first time in my hermetically sealed seminarian like sequestered life.
     Unsure at the present status of this three (?) member all male musician troupe (with a moderate sized following at the zenith of their renown i.e. with quite a motley crue of groupies to boot), nonetheless at the height of fame and fortune experienced by said trio, a spurious whim spurred this middle aged chap to jot down his feelings of unbridled affinity toward said talented three person creative young men within a poetic format (left unmodified only if there appeared a typographical error, or an ambiguous awkward outdated word arrangement) will be appended below.
Billie Joe Armstrong,
Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool,
which trio known
(the world wide web over)
as the band Green Day
composed lyrics and melodies
this listener did imbibe
analogous to downing musical fuel
no matter the lead singer
supposedly never graduated

from high school,
yet raw bits of primal utterance
approximated immense talent galore,
which excessive indulgence
with amber liquids of the dogs
or flagrant downing
consciousness expanding material
filled the airwaves of soundstage and/or studio
with snapping, popping, and crackling
rhythmic synchronicity evoking images
of warm from a Yule tide burning log.

I (a common, easy going, generic kid,
a garden variety and generic American Idiot)
spent childhood years
practicing the piano,
which tickling the ivory (way before
realization brought to my attention,
how elephants illegally
poached and slaughtered),
for shear sporting whim
pounded the keys with vigor and vim

speculated at how dissimilar mine fate,
would possibly be if dedication sustained
to be a self driven task master
while mollycoddling the baby grand,
perchance me billfold and financial accounts
would not be extremely paltry and slim
reflected then and now,
on one of those “what if...could a,
should a would a...” hypothetical queries
and wonders When Stopping By Woods
on a Snowy Evening  

if Robert Frost enshrined and rim  
mem bored viz signature ruminating
about “The Road Not Taken”
might fancy himself joining a seminary
(rather peculiar though from an atheist)
obeying behavioral edicts
(with no discipline required
from “religious fathers”proper and prim,
hence baring the habit as a nun
in a convent chances negligible to him

i.e. me, yet...all those mewing kitties
will more closely match my anthem
but un-natural suppression sans animal,
carnal, feral...predilections
finds thoughts quickly being
dismissed cuz of such
restrained celibacy codas,
and even preferring to be dangling
(literally), and holding on for dear life
from a rather straggly limb

even clinging with diminishing strength
resorting to contriving
a rip public kin battle Hymn
knowing likelihood
(When I Come Around)
for immediate salvation grim
er ring, and fading outlook
Whatsapp eared dim
getting anxious, and
minimally cautiously optimistic

that When September Ends piercing
me (a Basket Case)
flesh with pellets of cold rain
grip upon the slippery bark will induce
greater anguish emotional pain
unsure if mine demise will be a cometh,
as grim reaper doth gain
another mortal, whose life cut short  
will induce a gaping hole
within thy family chain.

— The End —