Bull and Bear Fable

This is the stock market fable of the bull and the bear
These animals of Wall Street have always been there
Many investors believe you must be one or the other
Just like every one of us having only one mother

The pessimistic bear insists prices can only go down
While the bull believes only going up is more sound
These animals have had an antagonistic involvement
Since the days when prices were quoted on parchment

The battle starts early, the bell rings just after dawn
It’s a daily ritual to see who puts forth the most brawn
Many scuffles are mild, fixed with Band-Aids and gauze
But the scene gets brutal when its horns and sharp claws

The bull has a habit of charging upward for years
Putting the bear on pins and needles until a reversal is near
When prices change course and plunge steeply down
No one relishes being the last bull to leave town

Extended bulls and bears have bankrupted each other
Ending with exhaustion or being financially smothered
This happens when you think sticking with one is a requirement
Better to be chameleon and change with the environment

——

My fable in response to Linda Kruschke’s Fun with Fables and Paint Chips.

FABLE: (Latin, “to speak”) A story, in verse or prose, that uses animal characters to point out a moral. Definition from the poetry dictionary by John Drury.

THE CHALLENGE: Your challenge, if you’re up to it, is to write an original fable in verse. I’ll accept prose, if you must, but verse is so much more fun and challenging. In keeping with fable tradition, your poem should involve at least two animals and should illustrate a moral principle important to you. The paint chip words and phrases that you have to work with for your fable are ghost, pins and needles, parchment, gauze, whirlpool, relish, and dawn. I’d like you to use at least four of the chips.

See more Paint Chip Poetry.