Friday, October 15, 2010

Ex-Anglo chief bids to be made bankrupt in the US

A country to be proud of

He’s been living in Cape Cod,
doubtless made his peace with God,
after driving Ireland to the brink of ruin.
With his anti-Midas touch,
his banking record’s such,
that we can’t fathom all the debt accruin.’

Now a court in Massachusetts,
where a judge of Yankee hue sits,
will hear this banker’s bankruptcy petition.
And sadly, it’s no joke
that this still-quite-wealthy bloke
has made a hefty counter-claim submission.

He says the bank’s an onus
to fork out his pension bonus,
and damages accrued from loss of salary.
How very wise, one might declare,
that he is suing over there,
and not doing it before an Irish gallery.

Furthermore, if he’s successful,
in this case both hard and stressful,
he’ll hang on to his multi-million pension
and his house in Malahide,
and the house he has States-side,
and any others that you care to mention.

Meanwhile, a man whose kid
left a cardboard box and lid
beside the bottle bank in Superquinn,
was sentenced to do time
for this arbitrary crime.
What a marvellous country we are living in!

1 comment:

Stafford Ray said...

Pete, I can't believe I am the first to comment on such a topical and clever poem!
"Now a court in Massachusetts,
where a judge of Yankee hue sits,". Now those are great opening lines for a limerick... but then you are Irish! :-)

Except that maybe for a visitor, one has trouble finding the 'front door' as it were.
But I did read this one with giggles and nods of agreement.

Your comment at my place is not the first expressing that sentiment but I counter by pointing to a few world situations where you have an Ian Paisley ranting hatred and we have Shia and Sunni killing each other over who controls the treasury, Serbs and Croats fighting over ancestral lands and so it goes.
You might be justified in asking if it was the poem or the poet speaking. It was and always is both. I am almost always driven to poetry to express my most agonising emotions.
But having said that, my view of God is mine and stems from a childhood of abuse in the name of the father, son and holy ghost, a level of abuse made possible and mon-accountable because it was sanctioned by certain passages; note I do not offer the escape of 'interpretation of' the bible.