"Nowadays, you can't turn on the TV without some talking head telling you about the economy. Yet, in a world overrun by 'analysts,' only one man has the guts, the brains, and, quite frankly, the poetry to put it all in perspective.That man is Michael Silverstein... Silverstein is a true intellectual." — Gersh Kuntzman, The New York Post

"Few people have found much to laugh about in the stock market this year. Michael Silverstein is the exception. The Bard of the Bourse can find humor in losing money, globalization and stock options." — USA Today

More Of What The Critics Are Saying
About Silverstein's Verse

 

I can see why an Englishman would opt to live in America. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone would opt to go the other way. Still, it takes all kinds, and if Thomas Stearns (a.k.a. T.S.) Eliot found the move useful, I guess that decision, in and of itself, shouldn’t disqualify his work from consideration on this web site.

Eliot’s best-known collection, The Wasteland, (1922) focused on the barrenness of existence—a not unusual focus before the invention of mutual funds. And perhaps the best-known poem in that collection is "The Hollow Men," which I reconstruct here. To describe the inherent valuelessness of most modern communication, Eliot created the phrase "rats feet over broken glass." To describe the inherent insipidness of market guru advice in our own times, I use the phrase "luke warm white wine in chipped cups." You’ll agree with me, I think, that his phrasing is better. But mine isn’t that bad.

The Guru Men

We are the guru men
We are the pitch men
Hot tip purveyors
Spouting the obvious. Boldly!
Our pale visions, which
We parrot endlessly
Are dull and insipid
As boiled beef on toast
Or luke warm white wine in chipped cups
From screw top bottles.

Talk without thought, views without content,
Pasteurized dreams, knowledge without wisdom;

Those who have placed
In markets faith, their hopes for better lives
Bought our puff—completely—at their peril
And remember us sadly
As the guru men
The pitch men.

This is the way the boom ends
This is the way the boom ends
This is the way the boom ends
Not with a crash but a lawsuit.

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