Dennis Weiser

FINANCIAL I.V.
for Jamie Dimon

A vampire sits on top of the vault,
batwings folded neatly down its back,
drowsy, flutter-eyes, head bobbing now.
You wonder how much time you have
until the compliance officer discovers
the fault...like a fault in earth's crust
that is waiting to go, you are waiting
to go, but you have to go slow
so no one will notice what no one
will know when you joggle the mortgage
and boggle the loan, while the couple
from Ghettosville sit, sweat and squirm
in their seats as they wait for the apple
and worm that they think is a plum,
a prize that you sold them for being
so dumb, so hungry to finally belong.
Now they sign and you shake hands
and now they are gone. The hand
sanitizer protects you from their germs.
You feel yourself starting to doze but...
Surprise! as sharp teeth plunge into
your neck and you feel the blood rise
from jugular to gullet, your wide-open
eyes see alien vistas, exquisite and wise.


Dennis reads "Financial I.V.":



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Dennis confesses: "Jamie Dimon is of course the CEO at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., who should be wearing orange; the poem evokes the subprime mortgage scandal of 2007–08 and subsequent global depression, sadly still with us."

DENNIS WEISER has published more than a dozen works of poetry, fiction and nonfiction since 2005. He is a former weekly columnist for The Kansas City Business Journal and book reviewer at NPR affiliate KCUR-FM in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has lived since 1981. In September 2014, he launched 3RD AWAKENING BOOKS, which in June 2015 published Sinister Dynamic, Volume Three: The Challenge: Redefining Work, Equality & Authority. A member of the Academy of American Poets, Dennis is currently writing Emmisary, a sci-fi novella that cannot be made into a movie.