Poet’s Corner

CRUNCH

10-02-2009

With Britain’s bankers being called to account by MPs today, Brendan Hawthorne offers a poetic view of credit crunch carnage.

A cold snap
snaps on the heels
of the credit crunch
now banks have bitten off
more than they can chew
A post-party government with
indigestion and headaches
has lost its grit and
doesn’t know what to do
driving along skid row
along a no-through rocky road
to the streets where
collecting tins rattle like snakes
Redundancy cheques get cashed
and there are more mouths to feed
on limited benefit income
and reduced pensions
as we try to jump start
a car industry that
got put in the ark
lost its spark
four by four
And the banks have become charities
holding out their
over-stretched hands
for another payout
another bail out
another calming stroke
on their financial brow
whilst another few millions in sterling
are shovelled into
cash flow fire pits
incinerated before each bearer’s promise
has touched the sides
leaving voluntary groups
waving stickers at good causes
giving out smiles
at supermarket check outs
because of cuts in services
they are forced to face the people
as a winter wind rips through
the good hearts of a charitable general public
who can give no more
take no more
and feel guilty that their own pockets
are too empty to pay out anymore
to well meaning organisations who help
keep kids off the street
help the elderly stay warm
and give the rest of us hope
that someone
somewhere
cares
Even as we speak
more money is being poured out
running through counting house fingers
and down the drains of recession
as local money market experts
get frost burns instead of
the people who know better
based on far off sleepy shores
topping up their bonus tan
in a warmer climate
to count their losses in profit
than here in the fallow fields
of accountability
as the rest of us grit our teeth
and weather the storms and havoc
they have wreaked
Because after all we’re told that
charity begins at home

Copyright Brendan Hawthorne 2009