The Market Is a Merciless Beast

February 20, 2018

Dear Subscriber:

Each week we examine a theme from a variety of points of view. The theme for this week is politics in honor of Presidents Day, which was celebrated yesterday, February 19^th.

Today’s poem is a political poem about the relationship between the market and the heart.

I welcome comments on my poems at https://nicholasgordon.blogspot.com.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The market is a merciless beast,

Bloodstained in tooth and claw,

A superbly crafted predator

Honed well by nature’s law.

Tame it and you’ll get a dog—

Friendly, useful, smart,

Overbred imperfectly,

The flawed result of art.

Which do you choose? The perfect beast

To maximize return?

To set unbiased by the heart

What people pay and earn?

Or the dog, who would prefer

To find some way to please,

And with a trick or two, the pain

Of life’s worst hardships ease?

Oh, yes, the market undisturbed

Works most efficiently.

But do you choose the wilderness

And nature’s cruelty?

Or do you choose the park, where nature,

Guided by the will,

As tame as we, is modified

To spare the weak and ill?

Which is your reflection?

The wild or the tame?

Your answer is a mirror,

Its heart and yours the same.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite this poem and listen to the music I chose for it at https://www.poemsforfree.com/themar.html. For more poems about politics, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/politicalpoems.html .

This week’s theme: Politics

February 19: President’s Day? Presidents’ Day? Or Presidents Day?

February 20: The Market Is a Merciless Beast