Three Poems

BEARS IN THE STREETS

Its share price sinking
At implausible speed,
Vladalisco Company refocuses on
Its balance sheet.

Cut the rate of growth?
Cut the common stock?
Sell convertible preferred
To private firms?

Vladalisco-has never missed
A quarterly earnings target.
“We don’t have an earnings problem,”
Says the CEO.
“We have a multiples problem.”

No one knows what he’s talking about
And they are suspicious
That Vladalisco overpaid to
Acquire Big Bear Financial,

A company whose granaries
Once burst with bonds, derivatives,
And collateralized hypothecations
Piled to the rafters.

Now bears darken the night, and by day they
Dance in the streets. Contrary to popular images,
Bears are timid and prefer to eat in the woods unless we put out honey. Says the CEO “Vladalisco’s merits have been overlooked because of all these bears spreading one ridiculous Rumor after another.”

TUESDAY AT TEN

She says she’ll arrive
On time, thanks to an implausible device
That will position us globally.
Her GPS will know where to find me, and perhaps
Recognize me when it sees me.

She’ll be coming not to examine me
But to give me the thing she has for me
My health insurance application
What health? Very few things
Propagate anymore in my body, and yet
My liver is still burstingly
Fertile-its lobes and ducts send bile,
Running sweetly, sweetly as a
Fish-fattened freshet.

The health insurance
Application rests on her lap
She’ll look down at it with tears in her eyes,
Still sipping
From the saucer of milk I set out for her.

HOPE THIS E-MAIL WILL
MAKE YOU HEALTHY,
WEALTHY, AND POPULAR

These trees cascading,
this clump of shrubs
bowed and flashing
under the fierce pulsate pelt of rain
hasten grace and
stir my amygdala
to flow with associations.

O rostral anterior cingulate cortex,
aware of my optimistic
illusions, protect me
while I dream of hope