“Willard died in ’35” (A Poem)

by Martin Anton Smith

The economy crashes when too many people blindly copy each other thinking they’ll make an easy buck.

The ruthless ones that control everything long term know this.

They’ve known it since the dawn of man & probably before that.

So they sit on the sidelines ready to pick over the carcasses.

It happened this way in 1929 1987 & 2008 & 2020.

I can just imagine some ancient fossilised vampire with his centuries old battlefeild skin all lined with the seeds of hundreds of years of faustian knowledge.

He’s both sitting & dwarfed by an oversize leather chair clubs & he’s pontificating to one of his fellow blood sucking kinsmen:

“Oh my Willard, isn’t it wonderful that the crash of ’29 is going to have its one-hundredth anniversary in a few years? I plan on making a killing like I did back then. Now where did I put my cup of virgin’s blood? It was here a second ago. There’s to many swooping seagulls around the graceful Buzzards round here Willard. Oh, there’s my cuppa blood – still warm too. But It’s always a bit sad to see the waitress’s wilt. But let’s hang on a few years till the real bloodbath in 2029 Willard…Willard?….WILLARD!??…oh silly me I forgot Willard died back in ’35 – partied too hard during the Depression, the silly schmuck!”

I don’t blame Willard for not being there – even a vampire has to have a few blood free days once in a while.

As Bertie the pontificating vampire had always said around the club during big paydays, “there is such a thing as too much of a good thing you know – that’s why we cut these big crashes in half these days – we were all to greedy in ’29”

Contrary to ’80s Wall St catch cry,

Greed is not good.

Leave a comment