THE TRADER (with apologies to Will)

To buy or not to buy, isn’t the question.
When to sell’s the thing. Whether to grant
Call options in pursuit of quick returns,
And take the risk of losing all to some
Gross outrageous profit warning, or
To take the modest gains that patience merits
And miss that fleeting smile of fortune
Which leads to wealth beyond the span of greed.
To trade; to deal, forever weighing the odds.
To sleep no more, since markets never close.
Mammon’s alchemist; slick transmuter of
Base coal to corn then gold and back again.
No soiled hands or tell-tale stains, just
Nuggets of pure unsullied commission.
The profitable grind of a weary life.
So when we’ve shuffled off the trading floor
What dreams; what horrors may come to haunt us.
To gamble; perchance to lose; there’s the rub,
For from that lusting whore of fortune,
Who knows what opportunities might fall.
There’s the respect that comes from high success,
While envy weaves its green and toxic spell
And sly sloth resents your hard-earned wealth.
For who would wayward market forces bear,
Sweat under the gaze of an angry boss,
Take the spurns of moral indignation
And the jibes of another’s wounded pride;
When with the click of a mouse he could end it,
And leave the glutton’s pit to younger men.
But that the dread of life without the buzz,
Consigned forever to that other world,
That sunny foreign vineyard from which
No trader returns; makes us pause and think.
And thus we choose to bear the ills we have
Than opt for a life of simple, stressless ease.
Thus does experience make cowards of us all
And the resolution born of winning
Seeps pale away with every losing trade
And enterprises of great pith and moment
Turn awry as fear calcifies the will
And lose the name of action.