T.S. Eliot worked in a bank. His friends came to him one day and said, "Look, T.S., here is some money to support you. You need to leave this bank and devote your time to poetry."
"Ah, my friends," he said. "This bank has been an inspiration to me. One afternoon before I worked here I came in and heard the bank clerks singing, each to each. I asked them if they would sing to me and they said, "No." Out of that incident I made a poem. More recently there was a manager who walked around with his arms full of hyacinths. They dripped water on the floor. We called him the hyacinth manager. Another poem."
"We're sorry T.S., we didn't know."
"All great poets work in banks. A little-known fact. Keats handled hedge funds. Byron dealt with loans and interest rate adjustments. Ezra Pound, he is planning to fake his death at the age of eighty-seven and take up residence here as a bank vault."
"Really?"
"Yes. In the future, when his poems have been forgotten, he will still be remembered for his e-z swing hinges and dependable locking mechanism."
They sighed with longing. "Oh tell us, where do we sign up to work in this bank?"
"Here, my friends. Here."
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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, for the singing.
and The Waste Land, for the hyacinths.
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