A few, a very few, of the Wall Street hustlers who made fortunes in various market misdeeds are now coming to the bar of justice. Will they get the punishments they deserve? Or will some of them—as this poem suggests—end up turning their “tribulations” into another hustle?
A Reformed Financial Felon’s Confessional
For many long years I lived in a prison,
A prison of vulgar materialism,
Acquiring goods was the aim of my toilings,
Ignoring all higher spiritual callings.
With all kinds of bought things I was long surrounded,
I owned countless gadgets, my boy toys astounded,
From autos and watches I carefully chose,
My wife was Miss Texas, she owned lots of clothes.
Then out of the blue came a dragged out recession,
Which at first I believed was just a digression,
I figured at worst it would trim down some perks,
Who knew it would linger and gum up the works.
Soon I was smitten with trials unholy,
They repoed my Beamer, my condo, my Rollie,
Miss Texas, who’d sworn in her heart I was graven,
Took up with a lawyer, a class action maven.
My home life was bad, but at work it was worse,
I suffered indignities, crass and perverse,
While colleagues got wrist slaps when their sins were cited,
A pushy DA got me cuffed and indicted.
It was down hill from there, but why dwell on the past.
The big thing is that all this angst didn’t last,
For I learned from the horrors with which I was gored,
‘Bout a far greater Wisdom I’d too long ignored.
I saw in a flash that my whole life was rotten,
That all the possessions I owned were ill-gotten,
To a judge I explained this, head bowed, meek and nervous,
He nodded and gave me community service.
From there I embarked on the road of contrition,
Proclaiming this Truth became my new mission,
And contrition, I found, is a marvelous hook,
Soon I had a good agent, a best-selling book.
The book was my passport and soon I was able,
My message to spread via columns and cable,
On Oprah I ‘splained living simple’s just fine,
And flashed a CD priced at $9.99.
Strange as it seems, I earn more than before,
By loudly espousing the joys of the poor.
To keep this new rich life, I need just decoy it,
And straight-face declare I don’t really enjoy it.
More from this writer at wallstreetpoet.com