G8 Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

From where did you acquire the property, your highness?
What do you hide? Provoke us to judge your opaque things?
But how? The Constitution is tailor-made for your size,
the law hitches, delays, postpones, rests as an idle,
the Committee to control you has not quorum to decide,
the Court for fines caresses you, imposes to you tips only.
You Mr Shame, the city’s shame; don’t you be ashamed?

From where did you acquire the property, your higness G8?
Oh, fateful shame, you offer five talents to an engineer
to fill up the clefts of your house to cover its interior.
But Livius Drusus offers as much as ten talents
to an engineer to widen the clefts, so that people
passing by may look in and spit or insult, if they wish.

From where from did you acquire it, G8? The planet is not
yours, except of the wrath of the White Thunder in poles.
Find a corner to fold your body and hide it away,
not to be squashed by the iceberg that falls woefully,
or blown out by our forests which decay while upright.

From where you got the chrysanthemums, the heliotropes,
the irises? It is your ear that Van Gogh wanted to cut off.