Start Begging Again Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Following the glowing panorama of a tragi-comedy
staged by the former President of a languishing
African State, the grasping, self-serving characters
like puppets presenting a show in my head: I see the
President at the wheel of a Limousine welcoming
every family member and private advisor who dipped
their hands in the State's money bags

All laws and regulations used to further their own cause
as financial institutions went bankrupt one after another,
I see the puppet faces in this happy farce that had no
place for the common populace, grabbing and changing
a whole state to suit themselves, Greece looks mild in
comparison, I sympathise with the unsophisticated who
do not realise the self-defeat when

The goose laying the golden eggs is killed, these hands
slaughtered the nation's goose in their greed - now
everyone is overcome with contrition, no more golden
eggs, time to start begging again…