OPINION
‘Wae Worth Thy Power,
Thou Cursed Leaf !’
By Rab Wilson
Aye Rab, here’s oor reputation, A shame the kintra’s in the rid,
As the warld’s maist thrifty nation, (But we hud nocht whan times wir guid!)
Wreckt bi greedy speculation, Sae nou ye neednae try an kid
An ‘Toxic Assets’ Us wi mair lees,
Scotland’s banks face ruination, Juist lea us tae oor ‘Fiddler’s Bid’,
Frae Yankee wadsets! The ‘Birds an Bees’!
It’s no lang syne, sin oor frien Sawney, Whit heppen’t tae oor watchword, ‘Thrift’?
Said economic seas wir balmy, These straichtent times hae gar’d her shift,
An cuddled up, aa smiles an smarmy, Yer auld girl, ‘Prudence’, gang adrift,
Tae bankin chiefs, Oan choppy seas,
Nou he gangs ‘cap-in-haund’, wi’s Tammy, Debt steiks the door lik Wunter’s drifts,
Tae cadge relief! We’re oan wir knees!
But sleekit bankers arenae new, Yet, it’s no lang we hud great surfeits!
Mind Miller an Dundas’s crew, Whan banker’s bummed o ‘Record Profits’!
Wir keen tae pit the hems oan you, Did they no think, sat at their banquets,
At Ellisland, Oan Pharaoh’s fears,
Back then, as nou, the ‘well-to-do’ Tae set aside pairt o their budgets,
Ne’er lift a haund! Fir leaner years?
This fall o banking’s bastions, An whit aboot young business ruits,
The heroes o their pantheon, Thae fragile economic shoots,
Is aiblins worse than Darien, Wull they be washt up destitute,
When ‘best laid schemes’ When floods recede?
Turnt oot less than Utopian, Abandoned by the heirtless bruits,
Tae dash oor dreams. In time o need.
Whit caused this dreidfu dissolution, Wha’ll sauf us nou frae fiscal doom? Fir Chrissakes, whaur’s the guid Scots mense,
O Scottish banking’s institutions, In, gallopin, comes Gordon Broon, Three hunner years o common sense,
Wha wull we seek fir retribution, Wha’ll tak the fat-cats knickers doun, That guardit evri haurd won pence,
Wha’ll bear this gree? An skelp their erses, Tae mak it growe?
Rats soom in sairch o vindication – Announce ‘Aa’s weel!’, then importune, Whit say ye nou, in your defence,
‘It wisnae me!’ The Public purses! Here at the roup?
Weel, mibbes it’s the Scottish psyche, Whiles aince we’ve aa goat ower the fricht, Aye, Scotland’s pride hus taen a dunt,
Blame queer antisyzygy, He’ll tap thae ‘Gnomes o Zurich’ richt, Faa’n prey tae the ‘Global Credit Crunch’,
Blaw oor trumpet!!?? (me-no-likey), Crocodile tears he’ll swiftly dicht, Dundas’s ghaists walk, exeunt,
Or, ‘Wha’s like us!?’ Syne trail us in his wake, An weel micht rede –
Mixter-maxtert, fanklet, taiglie, Tae see thon maist impressive sicht – This michty Stag, fell’d in the hunt,
Reelin, stotious…. A Scotsman oan the make! Nou ‘Pottit-Heid!’ HM
Else, “fier comme un Ecossais”, A Socialist true! He’ll win oor thenks,
But, ‘Prood o whit!?’ roond here the day, Bi nationalising Scotland’s banks, This work is taken from a series of poems
Nou ‘Fred the Shred’ hus won away, But watch oot fir ‘Auld Labour’ cranks! created as a commission by the Scots maker
Wi ‘Nae regrets!’ Nou they hae claucht ye, Rab Wilson for East Ayrshire Council’s
‘Pride comes afore a faa’, they say, Wi knife stuck in the ‘Piggy-Bank’, ambitious project for the ‘Homecoming Year’,
(Mind, Fred’s nae debts!) They’ll try an sort ye! titled ‘Creative Burns’.
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| 17 November 2008 | Holyrood magazine |
www.holyrood.com |
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