Let us pray for merchants and bankers –
World leaders.
For outproduction
And economic potential.
A prayer
Where greed is good:
A dream of domination.
Now there’s the rub-a-dub-dub
To be a Christian.
Where did it go wrong,
My adventurous song?
Our wings outspread like some financial Milton.
With rates at zero and losses infinity
I could have done with help earlier.
I ask, is this the prayer to prick my conscience?
As all around I see an eternal question.
One of nonsense, nought.
Cancelling these beloved mortgages.
Gone my Rock, Northern,
And happy Prince Bingley.
Where shall I turn, O Jerusalem?
Perhaps to back a different humour
The one with monetary tumour –
Boys and girls who bet the invisibles
A smile on their face without demurring,
Let us praise them.
Who stamp their feet
Staggering between alpha and beta
Giving a two minute warning
Before extinction.
In a vision, looking beyond the curtain
The price of oil doubling
While falling
A long way and back again.
What is this?
Nothing.
The stump of a tree rotting.
Inflation merry.
Iceland?
Sold for a penny.
Print and be damned,
How sweet – it’s a bail out!
For cars we do not need
Or care for.
Now there’s a man with vision.
So head’s were spinning.
Nobody (anybody) queried the query.
Knew whether we were running,
Shooting, firing
Lobbying or…
Out in rigs, steamers, living,
And everything moving –
‘Gated and booted,
You rough-riding, son of a vigilante.’
And horses with the feet of centaurs,
Salesman out west along highways
In patterns of spending obvious
Even the rich quite clever
Looking dreadful.
Enters Bernie to get
His leg-over.
Il Duce. Vittoria!
Now the screens stand watching themselves:
Floating or fixed, feelings that were mixed.
Each catcalling and prominent –
Telling of Tokyo,
The Footsie eyeballing
Or Paris falling –
As inhabitants
Walk out to a crash of symbols
Slightly militant.
Despite the sulphurous smelling/still exclaiming
“isn’t it wonderful the killing.”
Dumbed by their downfall.
Data correlated
To voice and nervous sinew
As star-crossed models.
The new swimmers,
Despite their death ‘brothers’,
All names inter-twinned: winners.
Pure velocity, surges/rallies.
Suddenly drowned,
Empty, empty,
The one lung we had perforated.
For the body, something technical:
A game of chairs,
A game of musicals.
Was glad as I walked into this house
Could not divide one mouth from another
Nor tell who was on my side
Or care or bother.
Felt only the warmth of the sun on my back
And the fires of hell around me.
To god I go –
A mispriced fool in a world of wonder.
Yes,
I shall walk in the valley of the shadow of debt
Every seed planted.
A million Armageddons flowering.
Thought I was man’s best friend
But now the lakes are burning,
All of us, no longer filled with thoughts of lust
Are wretched in state moneyless
Where dreams are turned to dust.
Let us return to Paradise, Archangel,
You and I walking under an evening sky –
What a bargain! Credit unlimited.
But, despite a discount,
Despite a god,
This sucker’s going down alright.