Bankrupt

 

Bankrupt

 

What does it take to get ailing patients

on their feet?

More than just icing, however sweet,

no cakes topped with chocolate, vanilla,

or that buttery, artificial lemon mulch

will do the trick. It will make you sick.

Sticks tongues, pastes palates with glue guns,

coats your mouth’s roof, rots your gums:

please, extract our teeth before cancer comes,

and sugar kills, anyway, doesn’t it?

Her cakes are hollow - well, everything is.

Behold that old duffer, making his splash

across today’s sickly front pages,

why, he’s been having it off for ages,

piling up his trashed Himalayas of cash,

now visiting hospitals and some might hope

he’s racing towards the finish line.

So, what’s the tale of the tape?

Most likely some sort of financial crisis,

a black hole, a Max Headroom,

an event horizon to swallow their dole,

smash and grab and take a handful off

the lazy ones who lie in bed and cough,

and just because the lady loves Milk Tray.

After all, when they do come out to play

it's on one leg, hobbling about with metal sticks,

and since Covid they’ve been on the sick.

She will never play fast and loose. Here’s truth,

why not slash foreign aid to pay for bombs,

disinter acetates of war songs,

and put some boots on foreign ground?

But, before you can help others,

why, you must surely help yourself,

and many are happy to do so.

While across the pond and overseas

greater minds diagnose disease,

watch her sinking to her knees,

perceive her needs and lick at greedy lips,

applaud Brexit and her sinking ships,

recall how once they paid in pounds and shillings,

and bid Godspeed to coalitions of the willing.