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Toxic Assets

'I have to go to town, ' she said,
'We'll catch the early bus.'
She'd overdrawn her credit card,
I knew - she always does!

I groaned and then I moaned a bit,
I'm just a country clod,
'I hate the crowds in town, ' I said,
'I'll stay here, on my tod! '

'You'll come with me, ' she said again
And used that piercing look,
The one that gets her everything
She wants, by hook or crook.

So there I was, adrift in town
While she went to the Bank,
To sort out her finances with
Some guy she knew as Frank.

I hung about outside, and watched
Her enter through the door,
Like some black hole in space, I thought,
And shuddered, like before.

I hated banks, and managers,
And credit cards and schemes,
They'd offered me a credit card
But I said - 'In your dreams! '

I wouldn't touch them with a pole,
I just believe in cash,
But wives are like some aliens
Straight from the planet, 'Splash! '

They love to shop, and flash the card
And buy their nicky-nacks,
While we just moan and humour them
Then pay the money back.

And so I stood and waited there,
My patience growing thin,
She seemed to take forever in
That bank, so dark within.

I always knew she'd be a while
She talks a lot, my wife,
She likes to tell the tellers all
The story of her life.

I stood for twenty minutes there
Just hung outside the door,
I thought, I'll give her half an hour,
Then just a minute more.

So that I did, and half an hour
Just wasn't quite enough,
I counted off a minute then
And thought, 'I'll call her bluff! '

I charged head down on through the door
Just like a rampant bull,
Ready to jump and yell and curse,
I thought the bank was full.

But when I raised my head to see
There was nobody there,
Just a row of grinning tellers:
'Can we help you, sir? '

'Where's my wife? ' I yelled, irate,
There was no other door!
The tellers said in unison:
'Go see the manager! '

I did, and he was sitting there
All plump behind his desk,
With dollar signs in both his eyes,
I nearly went beresk!

'So where's my wife, ' I yelled at him,
'She came to sort things out; '
But he just pointed to a chair:
'Sit down - no need to shout! '

'We had to bundle her, ' he said,
With all the other debts,
'The time has come, ' he said, 'we have
To dump our toxic assets.'

'She's just a liability,
Is always overdrawn,
She's bundled, will be auctioned off
To some poor sap, at dawn.'

I staggered off in quite a daze,
Just what was I to do?
I'd have to cook the evening meal
But just for one, not two! '

And then the paper said next day
That Wall Street had collapsed,
The world economy was sick,
And gasping, had relapsed.

And like a pack of dominoes
Each country bit the dirt,
They said that they'd lost billions
With debt, the world was girt.

And then, it seemed, they traced it back
To some small Aussie town,
One woman, always overdrawn
Had brought it crashing down.

I found her planting veggies in
Some old guy's vegetation,
He'd said she had to make it up,
His superannuation.

She got the bill last week, and cried,
She said she'd pay it back,
Two thousand billion dollars she
Has hanging round her neck.

And so I had to part with her
I know just who to thank,
I'll always see her entering
That black hole, called 'The Bank.'

29 March 2009.

poem by David Lewis Paget
Added by Poetry Lover
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