Our Annual Christmas Poem . . .

(Editor’s Note:  The big box stores have started selling Xmas trees already, so we thought it advisable to put out our annual holiday poem asap,)

Scrooge reformed kept Christmas well, of this we have been told.

He carved a splendid turkey and was open with his gold.

No beggar from his door was turned, no reveler reviled;

The iron winter evenings at his home were all beguiled

With festive songs and dancing and a bowl of right red punch.

At work he gave Bob Cratchit leave to dawdle over lunch.

Old Scrooge was now a merry soul; his firm in London town

Reflected his munificence and loaned, with nothing down.

His miser’s life was dead and gone, and generosity

Urged him to make presents of his boundless currency.

They flooded in to float a loan for homes and boats and carts;

For brewer’s yeast and all the latest maritime sea charts.

‘Collateral’ was not a word that Scrooge let pass his lips;

To him it was a nuisance like a mealy bug or thrips.

Soon other banks were taking heed and followed where he led;

They somehow thought it was all right when all their ink ran red.

And for a while it seemed that finance would turn topsy-turvy,

And perhaps the bankers could be treated less like scurvy.

Finally the bubble burst and stocks and bonds deflated

And pension plans were falling like old temples desecrated.

Foreclosures blossomed like the rust on shut-up factories

And the people had to live in crates beneath eldritch elm trees.

A scapegoat was demanded and old Scrooge was still at hand;

The government decided he had had the whole thing planned.

The  very name of Scrooge became a deep and dark offense,

And everyone did blame him for the loss of pound and pence.

He had to go to Downing Street and beg to be acquitted.

The Cabinet to New South Wales soon had his soul remitted.

Now Scrooge amidst the dingoes celebrates on Christmas Day.

He carves a roasted platypus for those at his soiree.

Thus we see how goodness can bring on deep complications

When it gives to people nothing but Great Expectations.    

********************************************************

This holiday poesy is brought to you by Carl’s Jr.  Honest food.  Honest pleasure.