Ways of coping with loss

Death and disasters don’t make much difference to Lloyd’s of London bosses

Simon English writing in The Independent, 29 March 2011

A city tailor's clients sifting beans in the old

Lime Street coffee shop get misty eyed.

That great collapse of 2011 was when

we last felt alive, we mattered then —

shat ourselves in the fall, but made a killing

when the dust had settled. This new lot though

make 9/11 look like an act of God.

You can look away or lend a hand,

an ear or a voice, you can pick

over the bones of the fallen,

try on their shoes, make hay on the cheap

meat, hold the line or let it slip

through your fingers, become inured to it all

or insure it away like those men in fine suits.

Christchurch shook us, all that rubble,

it could have been St Andrew Undershaft,

and their dead looked just like us.

Not like Thailand, a sodden orange rag

snagged on a wallowing log shaped curiously

like the Buddha, (karmic comeuppance

for sex on the beach?) or the Japanese

fishing boats dry-docked in villages

landlocked by salt lakes that once were paddies.

Three billion pounds the lot, paid out in full

at a loss. Corks are popping nonetheless

in city bars because, like those fortunate

unfortunates, the suits are fully insured

and assured an excellent vintage this year.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Dear Mrs Hester

Goodwin Makes Unwanted List

Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2012

Mrs Hester,

            dearest Mater, it shames this loyal

and proud servant of the Royal Bank

of Scotland to be mindful of the forty-eight

percent your shares have fallen on my watch,

and, I must be frank, to further disappoint

you, Mother dearest, by admission of a forced

change to our holiday itinerary. What

with the Prime Minister's leaning on

the committee of remuneration, and

the Daily Mail's unholy lunge to the left

inciting the envious moaners to noisy dissent,

I was forced to forfeit a sizable deposit

on that new and larger yacht and may even

have to cancel the jet. Lord it's hard being

poor, the injustice of it stings, like tequila.

Good heavens I’ve done my bit for the ailing gal:

she was barely breathing, her vitals failing, when

I took the helm, and who knows she might

break even yet, with luck and a following wind.

Didn't I cut the waste of thirty thousand jobs?

Didn't I lay to rest the entire investment

banking arm? Believe me, Mother, I've tried.

But the ghost of Sir Fred chides me,

he chides me, from the empty trading floor.

So, Mrs Hester,

            we will have to tighten our belts,

Barbados is out of the question, but I've heard

that Devon is nice, at least in August.

Do you by any chance know where it is?

Well anyway, please excuse this hasty

scribbled note and tip my driver well

(but not too well), there's much still needs

be done here on the bridge; I'll not be home

before seven.

Your loving son,

Stephen.

X

(c) 2012 Slush Poet