"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

 

Let’s be honest. It’s not a great time to be in the markets. Last week the Dow fell below 10,000. The Nikkei reached its lowest point since 1984. The DAX and the CAC are both down 20 percent for the year. U.S. unemployment hit a 9-year high, while growth touched an 8-year low.

Looking around for an appropriate model upon which to base a new poem that sums up the current investing scene, I opted for William H. Auden’s "September 1, 1939." That was the day, of course, when Germany invaded Poland and started the Second World War. And while the upshot of present market upheavals will likely not be as severe, Auden’s anguished cries of anger and fear, capped with a sniveling desire for personal redemption, seemed to capture the right contemporary tone.

September 1, 2001 actually fell on a Saturday, during a holiday weekend when investors were far more likely to be on the beach than in a broker’s office. But what the heck: poetic license.

September 1, 2001

I sit in a broker’s office
In downtown Manhattan,
Watching with growing fear
As a decade’s worth of earnings
Gradually disappear.
Scenes like this have become
Commonplace everywhere
That people once made stock bets
Their personal obsession;
The looming specter of insolvency
Is giving us all the sweats.

One day the academics
Will explain the madness
That made sensible folks
Believe in market tooth fairies,
Turned callow analysts
And stooped central bankers
Into media superstars;
I, a seasoned player
Who’s rode both ebb and flood
Know markets that rise too fast
Must crash down with a thud.

My fellow investors
Strive to look tough and cool:
In this well-lit trading spa
Where reason seems to rule
Hypnotic blinking Bloombergs
And well groomed professionals
Contrive to calm our fears;
Lest we should pull out our cash
Focus on other needs
Exit the paper wealth chase
And illusions upon which it feeds.

But how hard it is to flee
This giddy investing life
With its endless rushes
And apparent importance.
We are daily bombarded
With blaring admonitions:
"Ride the bull and dodge the bear;"
"Pump up your 401(k);"
How does one ignore this,
How not hear the hype,
How see beyond the pitch?

I’m nearly busted now
And feeling kind of numb,
Watching a dwindling Dow.
Yet, my very despair
Suddenly assures me
That a bottom is near.
May I, this one last time
Cleanly hit the sweet spot,
Just past the glitches,
The golden nadir point,
That ramps up to riches.

******

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