The share of total income going to the top 1 percent of earners,
which stood at 8.9 percent in 1976, rose to 23.5 percent by 2007,
but during the same period, the average inflation-adjusted hourly
wage declined by more than 7 percent.
Frank Rich, New York Times (11/21/2010)
What strange increase and puzzling decline
Might join fierce finance to rich poetry?
Surely these two—antagonists—recline
In sep’rate beds, certainly do not ski
The same steep slopes. Yet poets should not skip
Description of the deadly demon plague
Spread by voracious rats—hedge funds that gyp
Bankers that chip, CEOs who renege
Their own humanity, slyly enrich
Themselves, exploit, careless, the myriad
Victims of their lust. What foul witchery
Allows one one-hundredth to reap a mad
Harvest of twenty-three point five percent
Of all income even as we others
Suffer a vicious seven point descent?
Percentages in poems? Linguistic smudge.
Call it what it is—an epidemic—
A new black plague without a ready cure—
Corruption bred, foul, wholly systemic
Spawn of pond-scum wealth. Ninety-nine endure,
While one gourmet devours obscene wealth—
Fattened on gross largess obtained by stealth.
You drain our blood. You’re evil, smart, and tough.
How much? Goddammit! How much is enough?
(11/25/10).