Wall Street Poet Michael Silverstein's Satirical Verse

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Wall Street Poet
Michael Silverstein's
Satirical Verse

A Dyspeptic's Guide To Contemporary American Politics (In Verse)

"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

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1951) is one of the few poets whose work makes me cry. And anyone who doesn’t feel the same way when reading a poem like "The Ballad of The Harp-Weaver" should be ashamed of himself.

Millay is probably best-known for the exquisite bittersweet quality of her work. You burn that old candle at both ends—and she did—and the glow tends to keep company with pain. The voice in these bittersweet efforts almost always belongs to someone who knows better but is too filled with life to really give a shit at that particular moment. Which, at its best, is what youngness is all about.

The poem parodied here is called "Recuerdo," which I rename "Torpedoed." Recuerdo is about being merry on a ferry and throwing away one’s last bit of money in a whim. Pure Millay. Torpedoed deals with throwing money away in markets, taking the hit, and coming back for more.

Torpedoed

We had soared to the stars, we had fallen to earth,
We had ridden this market for all it was worth.
What once seemed so sure, now looked kind of flaky,
But we shook off thinking dire, we didn’t go all shaky,
We stared at the Bloomberg that measured the boom,
And its numbers keep flicking out portents of doom.

We had soared to the stars, we had fallen to earth,
We had ridden this market for all it was worth.
And you bought some Apple, and I bought some Ford,
We kept right on trading so not to get bored;
And they fell a bit, but not through the floor,
So we laughed at the hit, and bellied up for more.

We had soared to the stars, we had fallen to earth,
We had ridden this market for all it was worth.
We cried "All hail, Greenspan!" when the times they were good,
And knew he’d make it all right, if anyone could;
Then he said "Rate cut coming!", great for Apple and Ford,
So we scrapped up our last savings and prayed to the Lord.

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