by Gadarene
I have the wealth of nations at my feet.
My understanding of the world
Leaves no place for love, anymore--
No love but the love of pretty things.
I have stepped into the virtual body politic.
I am a day trader bidding on the American dream.
Community is a zero-sum game,
Family are those individuals
Upon whom you will lavish gifts.
This is why we put up gates and barriers.
The relationships between wealth and virtue
And poverty and sin have transmigrated:
Connotation, correlation, constitution.
We are able, now, the children of Puritans,
Raised on plantations,
To see the judgments of our Calvinist god.
We are duty-bound to carry His message
From marketplace to marketplace.
We mingle impulses, offering salvation
In capital and futures and the Ivy League,
Coaxing plastic wafers into the throats of pilgrims,
Proselytizing to the stupid and the blind.
We are Americans, and we are patriots--
Ours is a special dispensation.
We are free to spend what money we have
In pursuit of status or distraction,
Ascension to heaven or relief from hell.
The wealth of nations at my feet,
I understand the obsolescence of love.
Its effect cannot be measured by economists.