God's Banker

In his oscar speech, Michael Moore described ours as fictitious times and the documentary form as their antidote. Last month's anti-war protests drew a strong response from the poetry community. In this week's webexclusive, we add two poems by Howard Slater to the linguistic pool: Untitled, and God's Banker.

"The real influences remain hidden, and the ultimate aims can barely be suspected and almost never understood. So that while no one can be sure he is not being tricked or manipulated, it is rare for the string puller to know he has succeeded."

– Guy Debord

Ambrosiano.Elixir of life, unguent of the gods, effluvium of human alienation.Banco Ambrosiano: the priest’s bank with its clause of consent.Pius X, Paul VI, Calvi: university fascist.Two card carrying opportunist.Unfailingly discreet. Banco del Gotardo.Obsessively secretive. Interbanca.Ambitious and reticent. Kredietbank of Luxembourg.Sindona.Sin owner. Allied grain trafficker of transatlantic deals.Precious introductions. The secrets of the 40s.Offshore labyrinths surmounting legislation.Shell companies… trusteeships… foreign fronts. Corfina.Gelli. Ortolani. Propaganda-2. P-2.Membership amounted to little short of a parallel state.A supper at the end of ’69.A villa at Arezzo or is it Zurich or is it in the back seat of a Merc?Discreet access. Unofficial hidden centre. Sottobosco.For Franco, for Peron. Permaflex. Giole.A spool of tape. Cisalpine Bank of Nassau.Private police force..Pope-guard Marcinkus on water skis.IOR are in. Institute of Religious Works are in.Global Vatican Switzerland.“You can’t run the church on Hail Mary’s”.Offered high interest rates to defeat tight exchange controls.Manic S.A. Milan. Pachetti, a staging post for shares.Passive partner. Toro Insurance Company.Generous to politicians. Credito Varesino.“He gave huge sums to the Bocconi University, to the prestigious BibliotecaAmbrosiano, and wanted to become a director of the Cini Foundation”.Coup makers of the stock market. Banco del Cattaolica del Vento.Spurious sale of luxury villa. Sapi.A string of scarcely intelligible balance sheets. Steelinvest.Remote, vaguely feared. Cimafin. Savoia.P-2’s scandal sheet, OP. Zitropo Holdings.Cavello, ex-communist agent provocateur, maker of a fake Fiat union,Produces Agnezi A: a smartly printed selectively circulated pamphletTo kindle suspicion along with posters pasted on Ambroisiano’s walls.Motor boats on Lake Lugano.Dollar overhang…currency snakes…crawling pegs…baskets.Cheap loans from the State.As much mediator as judge. Managua next.Make bank takeover proof. Ehrenkranz, Ralkov G21.Accounts in no name: 619834, 619112.Spread wide, sell back, inflate wildly. Finprogram.Fear of the mafia, deal with the mafia.Nominal contribution to Nicaraguan treasury. Lantana.Machinery of patronage. Orfeo.Investigating magistrate Alessanrini assassinated by alleged RedBrigade breakaway group: Primea Linea. La Fidele. Cascadillo.Civil war of financial institutions battling for the appendages of the State.Sarcinelli, the arrested head of the Bank of Italy is described as a ‘red functionary’.So much right. Who-knows-what-obscure design in Sindona’s simulated kidnapping.Lawyer Amrosolio shot dead point blank by strangers.A daughter followed.A desperate attempt to form a government.A protected inspector afraid. Banco Ambrosiano del Sud.Blandishment…Belrosa. Bribery...Belltrix. Threats…Laramie.Pamphlets sprout purporting to come from ‘Proletarian Autonomy’.Sealed-off double locking lift and an armour plated Alfa Romeo.Enter ENI: Mattei: Kingmaker.Deus-ex-machina. From the State via “black accounts” to the parties.Syndicated credits of sums materialised only in part preserving $160m of bad loans.Bad debt. United Trading Corporation.“The cassocks are backing us.”Basic capital flight. Signed ‘XY’.Nine million dollars on a telexed world tour.Rome’s communist daily lent $20 billion lire a higher dividend would makeThem forget. Savory Artac Bank.Apex of the judiciary. Zirca.Financiers in cuffs. Nordeurop.In a cell before bail it’s protested, hoped, that the triumvirate of sponsers, the full limitedpolitical spectrum of Andreotti, Craxi & Piccoli will intercede, legitimate the deeds.Channelled to Solidarnosc. Opus Dei.Eye for human weakness. Property-based mutual funds.Those who knew were scared stiff. Recioto.Vatican’s on-paper control. Midland.Identifying himself as ‘Luciano’. Chase Manhattan.Financial soldiers of fortune. NatWest.$900 million borrowed to no obvious purpose. CIGA Chain.IOR’s letter of confidence. “We directly or indirectly control…”Shifted ownership. Underworld fence.The man from Olivetti’s letter of complaint meets a wall of rubber.“P-2 is compiling a dossier on you.”Grandmaster Geli’s rumoured face-change.A form of non-party government. Astolfine S.A.Physical threats in the style of the mafia.Juggle money, plug leaks. Italmobilaire.Gun attack on his own vice-chairman.Suede wall-papered office lending to unspecified parties.“Things are getting out of hand. I can’t stay here any longer.”Half the level of a month and half before. Consob crash.Banks deal with confidence.Bankruptcy satori in Sixtus V Courtyard. 32 lawsuits.Board dissolves. Liquidity.Secretary threw thrown from the 4th floor.We do it is impossible to be sure.Disguised as a Fiat executive in the passport name of Calvini.From Klegenfurt to Innsbruck to Bergenz to Geneva to Gatwick to Chelsea.Barracks-like building, apartment 881. Pills and calls.“A lot people have a lot to answer for in this and sooner or laterit will come out.” Motor boat. Blackfriars Bridge – Northside.Lost briefcase. Dropping level of the tide.Orange nylon noose dangled from a second rung.Two half-hitch knots, bricks in pocket and fly, an address book page of F’s.No salt water in the lungs.The way Sindona goes, the way revelation goes.Murder dressed as suicide or suicide dressed as murder?Anti-Opus Dei P-2 Vatican PSI mafia kill fee faction.“Safeguard the continuity of the bank’s activities.”Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano.

Postcript

Exhumation. Movie. Safety deposit box.