Perpetua

Perpetua

He moves finance to forms others can’t follow
A magician of money who wishes his means
To mean something
Yet what lasts?

Boats, planes, wives standard ephemera
Indexed and taxed by locality and year
He’s got assets, credit, yet not much prestige
Pressure rises inside him to impress
At least himself

But art is iconic, core of a culture
Masters who master the spirits of soul
And he likes the images
Playful, colorful, sinister
Moving him to recall past victories
No one else knew

Other poor kids using paint, fabric, chutzpah
Now better known than names read in school
Some worth near as much as him
He wants in

The museum director is himself a great man
His words the sound and color of marble
You can endow walls, halls, even wings that
Fly above the stratosphere of taste
All named for you in perpetua
He asks how long is that?

The museum director says twenty-five years
In business five years is a lifetime
In museums
Five times five defines forever

His brain soon screens his personal art
An ichimoku all-in-one chart:
Tax write-offs, the discount rate of fame
Debits of a failing world

He is an optimist but not a fool
Twenty-five years should outlast him, his doctors
Perhaps survive longer than the planet

The pavilion’s name updated
His name celebrated not for eternity
But long enough