Winner - By Mara Lemanis

 

Winner
I commend my skills
in service to my fellows
We are the heirs to
treasures of the earth
whose worth your
instincts know
as I know how to
make wealth grow;
my brain outwits my instincts
it fine-tunes capital wins
and scorns to
chase a hunch
to short a sale
or tinker
like a migrant
to forage crop-by-crop —
My talents promise profits,
forecast infinite gains

I stream the genius
of Master Winners
who trained the world
to serve their passions…
They built the paradigm
that stirs my will
and bonds it to my heart
with hoops of tungsten.
They are prime avatars
of capital stock
like Mansa Musa
on the road to Mecca
who from his chariot
rained gold upon
the villagers and merchants
in his path;
like Shah Jahan
decreeing justice from
the Peacock Throne;
Yes, Temujin, too,
they dubbed a scourge,
who forged an empire
from China to
the Caspian Sea;
and no less Cosimo de Medici
lavishing Florence
with Renaissance;
or biblical Solomon
raising tons pure gold
25 each year he reigned;
and no less Catherine the Great,
who seized vast lands
and fertilized the finest
rich with alien spores…

Those are the keystones
that vault my will
that wins the treasure
that stocks the earth
that strikes the golden
ores of silicon and boron
that charges me
to prime the capital
your instincts
seek to serve.
                                                                           Mara Lemanis

 

 

 

 

Mara Lemanis

Biography: Mara Lemanis is a literary scholar. Her essays have been selected for 20th CENTURY LITERARY CRITICISM and are included in undergraduate student textbooks in the U.S.

She has worked as an archivist for Historical Preservation and with the IRC, assisting refugees in Oakland, California.