Magical

As we navigate what I recently dubbed "the ragged, weary end of another crazy year", I thought it best to keep this final Saturday blog of 2019 short, though I'll struggle to keep it sweet.

December has proved darkly depressing, with little of the magical in evidence - but hey, lighten up! We've left the longest night behind us once again and the spiral to warmer, brighter times has recommenced: 2020 ahoy!

"The sun sets - the sun also rises."

And so, as a final poem from a traumatic year, I offer you this on-theme polemic concerning that much mytholigised, magical...

Money Tree
Bury this tarnished golden seed
two feet down in the dung-pit
of greed - and cover your traces.

Sit tight with poker faces
while the vagaries of a sub-prime
climate do their nefarious worst

to sprout you a handsome harvest.
The best of it is, when the time
is ripe in the wake of delusional storms,

all you need do, to double your gains,
is hedge your bets, let a well-worked lie
or two leak onto the killing floor,

then reap the rewards of your sting.
You brassholes, with practised evasion,
will surely sidestep all accountability

while we duffers who fall for the smokescreens
you've crafted, be it that shadow
of a smoking gun or the phantom grail

of getting Brexit done, are royally shafted.
You might deny that it exists,
but your magic money tree never fails,

its roots and branches everywhere,
and though regulators will ineffectually rail
afresh on each regrettable occasion

the sombre truth is this: you get obscenely richer
and the have-nots grow the poorer, even while
being expected to bail out or foot the bill

for those lies you told, those lives you've ruined
and all those enterprises you have killed
in your selfish pursuit of such glittering fruit.


That's them told! Thanks for reading. With all best wishes for a Happy New Year, S ;-)