Slumdog Millionaire Poem by gershon hepner

I’m not a slumdog millionaire,
and can’t find answers in a quiz,
but like a Luftmensch in the air,
with lots of jeeze but sans the whiz,
I hope that someday I’ll become
a millionaire, the lottery
perhaps within my grasp with some
techniques of Harry Pottery,
unless a maiden aunt first makes
me heir to all she has, so I
get philanthropically the breaks
that help me launch my poe-try,
or else sweet fortune, fanning fame,
delivered by the poets’ genie,
will, with some luck, bring me the same
reward as it does Seamus Heaney:
a nice man, I have heard, and famous
for being kind––he’s even shown
me great respect. If only Seamus
in this respect were not alone!

Poetry’s an honest scheme––
you don’t do time for doing rhyme––
and maybe it could solve my dream
of fortune, rated above prime.
It’s culturally a great investment
for those who read my poems, and
more fun than the New Testament
which you need Greek to understand,
and even than the Older one
for which you should have Aramaic
as well as Hebrew. When well done,
my verse burns, far less formulaic
than Testaments, and I versify
some thoughts that may drive God insane.
Since fortune does not rectify
my state, why should I not complain?

If poetry, like lottery,
should fail, there’s always S.S.I.,
the Ponzi scheme for those who’re doddery,
unless it fails before I die.

Inspired by the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” and an article on Seamus Heaney by Karl Miller, reviewing Dennis O’Driscoll’s book “Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney” (TLS, December 19 & 26,2008) . Miller writes about Heaney that he is a writer whose sales are thought to amount to four-fifths of the poetry published in this part of the world, “a man greatly liked. There were bound to be complaints about him.” Heaney has written a very complimentary letter to me about my poetry.

The final quatrain is an oblique allusion to the Madoff affair, which is all about a Ponzi scheme which Bernard Madoff concocted to defraud investors throughout the world of billions of dollars. While not intending to exculpate Madoff, I would like to point out that Social Security is a federally-supported Ponzi scheme in which future generations are expected keep the kitty full while the present generation consumes it.

12/23/08