ISDA ninja

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An old lag, back in the jug agane for another term or lat, algy, geom, hist, bulles cads oiks, skool dog, skool sossages and MASTERS everywhere chiz chiz chiz. Self portrait to the right.

ISDA ninjas have a wealth of esoteric knowledge quite useless to them in any other environment than the one in which they pass their careers — waste deep in the septic sludge of Additional Termination Events, engaged in trench warfare with souls that, deep down, we recognise as like-minded, but still arrayed in slit trenches a few score yards away from us lobbing unexploded covenants at us by day and night.

There is war poetry that they write about their enemies who might otherwise be friends, share a drink

Strange Negotiation

With profound apologies to Wilfred Owen. Honestly, I am really sorry to do this to you.

It seemed that from that conference call I escalated
Some profound dull representation, long since waived
Through credit whose dyspeptic permission granted
Though caveated teeth, a route to our sweet resolve.

Yet also there encumbered assets groaned,
Too fix’d in charge or pledge to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed the liens, one sprang up, and cried
With piteous recharacterisation in his eyes,
Lifting distressèd claims, as if to clarify.
And by his carve-out, I knew that sullen hall,—
Absent limit, all doubt avoided: we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .”