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.":



Subscribe to Channel Five-Two for first view of new videos.


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.

Dennis Weiser

ELEGY FOR A LOST WAR

Though I will honor them,
I will not celebrate our troops, their deeds,
and the deaths of all those children, women,
men senselessly slaughtered
for the sake of your blind vengeance
and your greed in thrall to harpy
hypocrites, malignant mavens,
and senile sycophantic slaves
of "progress" and "prosperity".
The wealth of nations does not exist
in gross domestic products,
in armies and weapons or
the terror your very name inspires,
but in the love and solidarity it shows
with its children, elders, homeless,
hungry, despairing, poor and destitute,
the damaged and disabled ones
caught in the cogs of your machine,
beaten and broken for your dream.


Gerald So reads "Elegy for a Lost War":



Subscribe to Channel Five-Two for first view of new videos.


Dennis confesses: "'Elegy for a Lost War' was inspired by the abandonment and betrayal of our young military men and women by these insidious catastrophic wars, waged in the name of the American people but serving only predatory corporate interests. It's enough to make me reach for my WMD."

DENNIS WEISER earned his Liberal Arts B.A. at Westminster College of Missouri and his Master of Arts in Philosophy at The University of Kansas. He is a former weekly columnist for The Kansas City Business Journal and book reviewer at NPR affiliate KCUR-FM in Kansas City, Missouri. Volume 3 of Sinister Dynamic, The Challenge: Redefining Work, Equality and Authority will appear in June as the summer release at 3RD AWAKENING BOOKS. A member of the Academy of American Poets, Dennis is currently writing Emmisary, a sci-fi novella that cannot be made into a movie.

Dennis Weiser

ENTREPRENEUR'S PRIMER

Junior wanted money,
Judy wanted time,
so they saved their pennies
& they learned to rhyme.

I have a little money,
I have a little time.
I render unto Caesar
the fruits of Caesar’s crime.

So Junior got his M.B.A.
while Judy stuck to rhyme.
Now Judy's making money
while Junior’s doing time.


Dennis reads "Entrepreneur's Primer":



Subscribe to Channel Five-Two for first view of new videos.


Dennis confesses: "This poem was inspired by my realization that the M.B.A. is undoubtedly the most worthless degree imaginable, possessing neither discipline nor knowledge bas​e​, but is merely a hodgepodge of marketing, Psychology 101, advertising techniques and pseudoscience.​"

Poet, novelist and philosopher DENNIS WEISER is former weekly columnist for The Kansas City Business Journal and book reviewer at NPR affiliate KCUR-FM in Kansas City, Missouri. Tzytzyan Ysalane won first prize for prose fiction at the 2004 Chicago Printers Row Book Fair. He earned his B.A. in Liberal Arts at Westminster College in 1978, and his M.A. in Philosophy at The University of Kansas in 1991. His most recent work is The Axis of History, Volume One of Sinister Dynamic: Global Governance and the Reconstruction of Nature (October Surprise 2014), the Winter Selection of 3rd AWAKENING BOOKS. A member of the Academy of American Poets, Dennis is currently writing his third novel, a historical mystery set in 1879 Java against the backdrop of Dutch colonial exploitation.