Thanks for a great birthday you guys. Something new from my poetic archives...

"Mall-Walkers"

They tend to be silver-haired and at
Least 2 decades behind in the latest
Workout attire. No Nike or Reebok for

These spring chickens. All throughout the
Few hours of lunchtime traffic, the very
White shoes and turquoise pants patrol the

Perimeter like security guards of the
Plaza in disguise. Briskly they cover their
Ground from Boston Store to Sears: the mall walkers.

I wrote this after choking down a Nickeback song...

"Rhyming"

there is a fair
over there
bustling in the autumn air

they walk around
a makeshift town
absorbing all the summer sound

dongs and dings
to win some things
soaking in a sullen spring

but time grows old,
or so we're told
returning to a winter's cold

Well, you may or may not know, but I am a fan of poetry. Particularly the work of Billy Collins, the 2003 Poet Laureate for the US. He has published many works and is still active and alive (unlike a lot of popular poets). In an attempt to stretch myself artistically, I began writing some poems in his style, which is a free flowing thought process. I'm gonna publish a few of them on this blog just as an outlet for me. So off we go:

"The Wanderer"

As I lay in bed
staring blankly up at the naked ceiling,
silently waiting for sleep,

My mind swings his legs
off the edge of the bed and
slips on some slippers and pulls

A comfy old sweater over his head.
He walks creakingly downstairs
to the kitchen for a glass of water.

For some reason, he feels the
need to wander a little while longer
before finally lingering back to bed...

It isn't stubborness or insomnia,
but a brief pause, to take a last
deep drink of the day that was.

For those of you who have not turned on a television or simply don't have TV (like at my house), the past few days have been an economic and financial hurricane season. I'll lay it out in bullet points:

• The collapse of Lehman Brothers filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
• The purchase of Merill Lynch by Bank of America
• And the now precarious red ink of AIG has led to some tumultuous markets across the globe.
• Did I forget to mention that Secretary Henry Paulson is taking a hardline on the Treasury's role?

Top it all off with recent events:

• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are absorbed by the Federal government via the Treasury
• The Federal Reserve basically entering the loan industry by saving Bear Stearns from collapsing on itself
• And the 6.1% unemployment rate as announced at the beginning of the month!

I am only a college kid reading the headlines from the comfort of his parent-paid computer and house. But how are all these acquisitions, mergers, and bankruptcies gonna affect me in 5 years, in 10 years, in 25 years?

When I walk into a bank and ask for a loan to start my own record label or music venue, am I gonna get turned away because the government has put a straight-jacket around lenders? Don't take a risk on the recent college grad because we don't wanna get bent over like the 2008 Credit Crunch! Ahhhhhhh!!!!

As far as I'm concerned, these huge investive firms had it coming to them. When you bundle together garbage and sell it to folks who trust it, that's a white-collar crime. These big tunas may have been downriver from the fools who were giving money away like oxygen to borrowers who couldn't afford it, but indifference is a guilty verdict in my book. It's like conspiracy to commit investment deception.

Let them eat dirt for a little while so they don't forget the taste.