FIDDLING WHILE ROME BURNS

In the week that was in it, a scan at the headlines in the newspapers says a lot for our priorities, or perhaps more pertinently, the impression that the sub-editors of our national dailies (and not just the red tops) have about our priorities.

Our new Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, was caught using what was termed unparlimentary language in our parliament. In some heated exchanges in the Dail on Tuesday last, he was heard to the term ‘fuckers’ after a discussion about the cost of living in this country of ours. This was a muttered aside to his Tainaste, Mary Coughlan, after the debate had finished and the microphone in front of him was still switched on.

The next day the headlines screamed as though the man had murdered some of his opponents in the Dail with his bare hands. Banner headlines and various conspiracy theories as to whom he was referring to dominated all the papers, the venerable Irish Times included.

Is it not enough to make you sick?

The country is going down the tubes at a speed that is as bewildering and scream inducing as going down a 200 metre slide with grease on your bare ass and all that concerns the masses is apparently the F-word was used in the Dail!

Is there any hope left for us at all?

We are giving Cowen a small honeymoon period to show his mettle. It has to be very short. Drastic action is needed to avoid the country having to be taken in charge by the IMF.

Bertie has gone to the backbenches with the daft notion firmly fixed in his head that he brought prosperity to Ireland by his cunning methods and grasp of economics (he once claimed to have a degree from the London School of Economics). This notion on one side of his brain refuses to be overcome by rational thought that he was lucky and the real test was how he would prepare the country for the inevitable downturn that would come.

We know now the answer to that question.

He blew 15 years of good times in a variety of pet projects, a vastly inflated public service and a total cave in to the main cause of our current perilous state, the trade unions. His legacy will be one of utter waste of everything that was accumulated over 15 years.

In one year alone, he presided over the evaporation of the gains of a decade and a half.

In Inchodowney, in a famous Fianna Fail think-in, he declared himself a socialist. That was in 2005. The truth is that Bertie was who you wanted him to be during his entire career. Like the chameleon, he could change his colours to suit all occasions.

He will find a nice job in Europe (there will be none left in Ireland) and he will go to his grave with the delusion that he made the people of Ireland rich.

Meanwhile, Cowen is left to deal with the war. Time will tell if his efforts and potential will work.

Sadly, in the meantime all we can do is fill acres of newsprint because he uttered a curse in the Dail. Truly, the country is fucked!

BERTIE THE BOLT

Taoiseach-elect, Brian Cowen, faces his first major crisis just days after being installed as the leader of Fianna Fail.

Ironically, the pressing issue involves none other than the man he is set to take the reins from as leader of the country on May 6th next, Bertie Ahern.

This time the problem has nothing to do with Bertie’s finances, houses, lovers and all the baggage that was unloaded at the Mahon Tribunal.

Bertie Ahern is the only man struck by lightening twice in the history of the planet, which goes back billions of years. Not alone that, but he survived both attempts!

On Thursday last, Bertie and his entourage were making their way to Belfast for the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. They flew from Dublin to Belfast by the Government jet and were beginning their descent into Belfast when the plane was struck by what Government aides later said was a bolt of lightening. The bolt singled out poor Bertie and the man went into contortions in the seat.

There were four pilots and various aides on board totaling in number fourteen. Nobody was harmed except Bertie, who later bravely shrugged off the incident in his typical understated manner. “Ah shure, these things happen. I got the same dart some years ago on the way to see Bill Clinton in the White House. You get used to it, I suppose”



Back in Dublin however, questions were being asked. The Special Branch was called in to investigate conspiracy theories that were circulating on the internet. Rumours were spreading to the effect that this was no accident at all. Nobody ever is hit by lightening twice. There was some mysterious aura to the whole incident.

Why did Bertie and party need to take the Gulfstream V Government jet with a range of 13,000 kilometres to travel 150 kilometres from Dublin to Belfast? Why did they not go by road up that brand new M1 motorway? Has the toll bridge at Drogheda got so expensive that it is cheaper to take the jet instead?

What about the carbon footprint left after such a method of travel? Was this Bertie’s way of giving the two fingers to the Green Party who were holding their annual conference in Dundalk?

There was much scratching of heads at Garda headquarters. The CIA was asked for assistance as the unanswered questions mounted. They immediately re-assigned a crack unit, based at Shannon Airport, from their normal duties of kicking the shit out of prisoners on their way to Guantanemo Bay, to add their extensive knowledge and forensic skills in the search for the truth.



The CIA blamed Bin Laden for praying loudly to Allah and convincing him to unleash a bolt of lightening targeted to hit Bertie. Brian Cowen rejected this crazy notion outright and offered the scenario that Celia Larkin released a surface-to air missile from Killaloe to extract revenge for Bertie not marrying her when she asked him.

The Special Branch, clearly annoyed at having the CIA operating on their patch, suggested that this was much ado about nothing. They opined that Bertie was always a sitting target to be struck by lightening twice – didn’t he lead a misfortunate life, as sort of a political Jonah dogged by ill-fated events all during his political career.

People giving him money when he did not need it. Other people giving him houses just for the fun of it. Bankers refusing to open accounts for him, even when he was Minister for Finance. Disaster followed him everywhere. His daughter even married a guy from Westlife – the shame of it all! Sure, he was a sitting duck for a bolt of lightening.

As we write, the crisis continues. Watch this space. Space? Who said space?

BERTIE BOWS OUT; WHY WE SHOULD BE GLAD

Bertie Ahern succumbed to the inevitable this week when he tendered his resignation to take effect from May 6. This timeframe allows him to address the joint US Congress and Senate and provide him with an opportunity to say farewell on the grandeur of a world stage and add an impressive last line to his CV.
It is all a long way from the petty nit-picking probing of the Mahon Tribunal into his financial affairs, (as he seen it) which led to his departure on a very low note this week.
These revelations, and his incredulous explanations of his dodgy dealings with cronies in the mid-nineties, probably reveal the true Bertie that he so cleverly camouflaged during his political career.
In the end, he lied like an intellectually challenged eight-year old altar boy caught red-handed drinking the altar wine. It was farcical to see him digging a hole so deep for himself and then insulting the intelligence of the Irish people by his pathetic stories in trying to get out of it.
Let us credit him first with his undoubted achievement.
The torturous negotiations in bringing order and peace in Northern Ireland leading to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 stands as his greatest contribution to the people of the 32 counties of Ireland. His skills at achieving consensus helped to bring a solution that eventually morphed into devolved Government in Northern Ireland. Bertie Ahern deserves credit for his involvement in that process – but only as part of a team. And, bear in mind that his predecessors, Albert Reynolds, along with John Hume, were the real architects of the peace that is now in place when they opened secret dialogue with Gerry Adams and Martin Mc Guinness in 1994. Ahern never gave credit to either man in all the backslapping that occurred when eventually the North started looking after its own affairs.
In fact, he shafted Reynolds in the most two-faced manner when Fianna Fail nominated Mary Mc Aleese as Presidential candidate to replace Mary Robinson, having promised Reynolds his vote, only to betray him at the last minute.
Bertie Ahern is a complex character. Being educated in politics by Charles Haughey and graduating with first class honours – “the most cunning of them all”- eliminates him from any tolerance of the notion that he was some political innocent abroad. He cultivated the image of the ordinary north-sider made good in politics by sheer hard work and a disciplined constituency organization. At the same time, he was possessed of Machevellian purpose and intent that only the ‘Master Haughey’ could have honed to supreme levels. Bertie was clever enough to build around him an army of cohorts to do the dirty work and retain his innocent “wouldn’t harm a soul” image in his power base of Drumcondra.
When the top job became his, he brought many of these comrades with him and placed them in positions of power that was not for the good of the country, but for the good of Bertie. Added to that, he appointed a huge raft of professional advisors to go along with the public servants already paid to advise him. In a country of less than four million people, Bertie had enough of staffers to run the United States.
Clever people surround themselves with cleverer people. It is doubtful if Bertie ever had an original thought in his political life such is the array of knowledge at his disposal. His inability to think for himself was cruelly exposed at the Mahon Tribunal when forensic question about his financial follies were met with the most ludicrous and incredulous answers. Once away from the strings of his political puppeteers, Bertie was a walking liability to Fianna Fail and there was no way the party was going to let him go before the tribunal again as Taoiseach and pile more agony on them.
Therefore, it is hard to make out the character of the real Bertie. Was he a buffoon who brought Fianna Fail back together with his conciliatory methods? Was he a brain who had a great vision of what he wanted to achieve, and the cunning to carry it out? Apart from his positive role in the North, what did Bertie achieve for the people who actually elected him to office?
In a nutshell, very little. He presided over unprecedented economic boom that was under way when he took office in 1997 and to which he made little contribution. His greatest act was to appoint Charlie McCreevey as Minister of Finance. McCreevey was a maverick that could bully Bertie and his ministers into his way of thinking. A range of measures introduced during his reign as Finance Minister, most notably the cutting of Capital Gains Tax from 40% to 20%, ensured that McCreevey contributed more to the Celtic Tiger than Bertie ever did, despite the former hiring more public servants than the state ever needed.
Ahern wasted the billions that reached the coffers of Government, mostly from the property boom. He must take sole responsibility for his own vanity projects and the failure of his ministers to control budgets on various projects.
It is frightening to consider what was lost on the likes of the Luas, Port Tunnel, electronic voting machines, the M50, the Ppars health IT exercise, Bertie Bowl, Aquatic Centre etc etc.
Worst of all though was the Benchmarking Commission that gave away over a billion euros to public servants that were already overpaid. This was solely Bertie’s baby.
The ability of Ahern to achieve consensus was not a skill at all. It was a weakness. He gave into the unions for the entire duration of his political life. The PR people would portray agreements a victory for common sense when, in fact, Bertie surrendered. The unions played their part in the charade and sniggered up their sleeves at the meekness of the man.
In summary, Bertie Ahern was a lucky politician who in time will be remembered not for what he done for the state, but what he didn’t do. He rode the wave of the good times he was fortunate to find himself in and then washed the proceeds down the toilet.
He departs his office, leaving the country in a mess.
He did the state no service at all.

The Season is Upon Us

January through March are horrible months in Ireland. The weather is bad, money is in short supply after the Christmas excesses and all the economic forecasts for Ireland in 2008 are in the gloom and doom category.

In sporting circles however, January means that it not far away from the start the Gaelic football and hurling season. Spring and summer beckon with all the usual anticipation and discussion from the county teams down to the Junior 4 club side. The summer in Ireland will be defined by how your club or county performs.

Weather is irrelevant. The GAA supporter is a hardy animal and in the playing months (usually March to October) he or she are possessed of an almost manic religious fervour.

The GAA organization and its games are unique in the world of sport. Nowhere are there as compelling and attractive games to watch, played by amateur men and women to very high fitness levels and a huge degree of skill. These games attract massive audiences within Ireland, and yet remain virtually unknown in any country worldwide. With the exception of ex-pats organizing games in the US, UK and Australia, these wonderful games are ignored by mainstream media the world over. And boy, what are they missing!

For those who may not know of the national games of Ireland a brief introduction is in order. Gaelic games are basically divided into football, hurling, camogie (effectively ladies hurling) ladies football and handball (akin to squash without racquets). The first two mentioned are the main games, played by men.

The core of the entire GAA system is the parish club and the amateur ethos. The parish is an area within a county the borders of which were originally defined by the Catholic Church. Generally, what is known as the “parish rule” applies in that if a player is resident in a particular parish he is obliged by rule to play for the club that exists there. Of course, many parishes are large towns in which there are multiple clubs and in such cases, players have a choice from which to play.

No player in any of the sports receives payment. Only at the top administrative level do officials who occupy full-time jobs get salaries and expenses. A grants system is about to be introduced in 2008 to compensate inter-county players. This has attracted controversy and it remains to be seen how it works out. In many ways, this has come about because GAA has become a victim of its own success with huge demands on players from county and club.

There are over 2,500 clubs in the 32 counties. The game is structured administratively by an All-Ireland Central Council and then on a provincial basis through to a county board command role down to the club itself. The best players from clubs are picked to represent their county in the provincial and all-Ireland championships.

The volunteer aspect of the organization is incredible. Mentors and officials at club and county level work passionately to ensure the continuation of the games through generations, as other sports vie to attract the kids. For a sport that is confined to the 32 counties, the attraction and huge power it wields is a phenonomen not seen any where in the world of sport.

The amateur aspect is also the key to its success. Gaelic sporting heroes are tangible, ordinary men and women who perform heroics on the field of play, watched by thousands, and by a vastly larger TV audience. Yet, they have jobs to go to on Monday, whether it is a building site, or an accountancy practice, a teaching job or a university place. These young men and women are touchy, feely people that you will meet down at the pub having a pint, largely ignored by their local peers, but mega stars in the national media. They live ordinary lives with their feet kept firmly on the ground. There is little room for posers in the GAA dressing rooms and the down to earth attitudes of most players, famous or not, is one that is implanted in them from a tiny age. .

As a huge force for good in every community, whether it be a tiny village or a large town, it is impossible to calculate the enormous cultural and personal benefits that emerge from the presence of the GAA club.

At a higher level, the success of the game has enabled the GAA, and Ireland, to have one of the great stadiums of the world - Croke Park. This stadium has a long history but the foresight of the upper echelon of the GAA to demolish it in stages and rebuild it completely was a truly fantastic feat for an amateur organization. If only these people would take over the running of the country from the dimwits that are doing it now. Croke Park is now an excellent stadium seating in excess of 82,000 people. Not alone though is there Croke Park, but also many excellent stadiums around the country. Venues such as the hurling stronghold of Semple Stadium in Thurles and Clones in Monaghan spring to mind as good examples of regional stadiums.

It speaks volumes for the quality of the people running a huge amateur organization when you compare them to their counterparts in the FAI.

This supposedly professional body has made a complete shambles soccer at local and national level, despite the great years of success in the 80’s and 90’s. The FAI never capitalized on the high profile and success that Jack Charlton brought to the team and the country. The incompetent imbeciles that parade as professional administrators in the FAI could take a lesson from what the soccer brigade sneer at as the Grab All Association.

It could be more correctly described as the Give Away Association when one sees the funds that filter down to ground level, creating high standard amenities in every little village and town land, whilst the soccer clubs are still togging out behind the ditch and the national team is homeless!

The some what archaic administration system where the existence of County Boards, Provincial Councils, and Central Council management tiers is often criticized for the inability to move issues along quickly. There is more than a degree of truth in that, and this has often led to stalemate in trying to reach important decisions. None more so than the thorny and controversial decision to open Croke Park to facilitate the playing of soccer and rugby, games that were once alien to GAA culture because of the British occupation of Ireland at the founding time of the Association in 1884.

This mindset was reinforced by the memory of a barbaric act by the British forces in 1921 when they entered Croke Park in armoured cars, and opened fire on both spectators and players without warning. Thirteen people were killed on that day of shame, including one player, Michael Hogan, whom the Hogan Stand is now named after.

Thereafter, members of the British forces were not allowed to be members of the GAA. As the state evolved into what it now is, a Republic of Ireland of 26 counties and a separate 6-county province of Ulster, governed by the British, the ban applied up until recent years to members of the then RUC (now the PSNI ).

The most controversial aspect of the GAA rules that carried through from the 1920’s was what was known as the “Ban”. This rule prevented players of Gaelic games participating in what were termed “foreign games”, this meaning soccer and rugby. These two games were considered to be British games and therefore alien to Irish culture. It was the most ridiculous rule ever invented by the GAA and was broken so many times, by so many different methods, that public opinion forced the organization to revoke the rule in 1972.

That the rule lasted that long is not something of which the GAA should be proud.

Thus, the controversy about opening Croke Park to soccer and rugby was rooted in the events of many years ago. It took three years to get the motion approved to allow this to happen, and showed that history can be a great restrainer of progress. However, happen it did and one of the great memories of this scribe was watching Ireland beat England in the 6-Nations Rugby Championship at Croke Park in 2006 at a packed and indescribable cauldron of emotion and pride.

Let it be written in stone so that none may forget. Gaelic games are the face of what make Ireland wonderful and unique. We should, as a nation, be intensely proud of the GAA and therefore proud of ourselves as individuals involved in any role that may be as a mentor, supporter or player.

Roll on the summer of 2008!

We can handle the January blues with the mere thought of the joys that might be ahead.

The LIE That is IRISH PUBLIC SERVICE

The most incorrect term for workers employed by the Irish state is that of “public servant”. The title suggests that they carry out their duties in their place of employment, be they gardai, nurses, teachers, county council employees, tax officials, or ( the old favourite) clerical workers, in a manner that serves the public in an efficient, fair and courteous manner. The title is an abomination of what it appears to portray, or what it should portray. Public servants are there to serve the public and are paid by them.

In thousands of little cameos ever day in this country there are examples of how the reverse is true.
From over zealous taxmen, to petty health officials and Gardai that thinks their uniform entitles to act like Hitler by dishing out punishment for the most diminutive misdemeanors whilst ignoring the real crime that would be too much of a problem to tackle, we are financing the most lazy and incompetent so called public service in the world. And that is before the breathtaking arrogance of some of these people and their representatives, the union leeches, are even taken into account.
Ireland has the highest amount of public servants per capita in all of the EU states and most likely, if it were checked, in the entire world. They make up 20% of the entire Irish workforce! An incredible statistic that when one ponders about it, is quite frightening.
Who are all these people? Where are they? What do they do?
One fifth of the working population is employed to service the beauracratic needs of the other four fifths, needs mostly created by that 20% in endless regulations and red tape scenarios that are a hopeless illustration of their worth to their employer, the Government, and most of all to their paymaster, poor Joe and Joan Soap, the taxpaying public of Ireland.
Ever since Charlie Mc Creevey lifted the ban on public service recruitment in the late nineties, the biggest employment growth sector in Ireland, even exceeding the construction industry, has been the Public Service. It is also now the highest paid mainstream employment sector, some 40% ahead of the average Irish industrial wage and way above the European average, of course.
This situation has managed to evolve largely because of the ludicrous Benchmarking Process when Bertie Ahern caved into the union demands some years ago in a withering surrender designed to keep him in power. If the Labour Party had been in power they could have not done such a good job.
The legacy is of course a completely bloated public sector pay bill that the economy was just about able to handle in the good times, but will in the future become the Great Nightmare now that reality is coming down the tracks with not even a light on it. And, of course, the last that will suffer are the incompetents that occupy the lofty perches of the public service.

Have you noticed the increasing public debate that is slowing becoming louder on the policy of the current Government (or is that lack of policy?) on the thorny issue of immigration. Irish Independent columnist, Kevin Myers, has sparked a bit of liberal uproar by suggesting that Ireland should enforce an immediate
ban on immigration within the thresholds of our legal commitments to the EU policy on the matter. The facts are that Ireland operates a wide open gate to nationalities of all shades and creeds to enter this country. They do not seem to have set any boundaries on the limits that should apply. Kevin Myers is right. This short-sightedness now is going to have massive implications for Irish society down the line in a decade or more.
We do not have any moral obligation to loosely open our borders to all and sundry just because when times were hard, we emigrated to other countries, such as America and the UK. We don’t owe Nigerians, for example, a living because our descendants worked in America or Australia or wherever. We owe them nothing and the pious attitude taken by Irish NGOs is naive to say the least.
Ireland is hard put to look after our own and, as stated above, will be even more so now that the economy has slowed down. To refuse entry to people with doubtful credentials is not racism. To consider our own needs first and foremost is not racism. We have an eminent bunch of do–gooders in this country that seem to think that if we are not absolutely open and inviting we deserve to be labeled with the ‘R’ word. These mouthpieces are generally well heeled, well educated, considered to be academic and totally removed from the harsh reality of modern Irish life. They sip wine and pontificate at art exhibitions and envelope openings about the enchanted overview we as a nation must have. Do not be specific, just generalize please. It makes it so much less painful.
Their attitude might become more specific when their little Johnny or Jane arrive home and announce that they are going to marry Raja, or Mutu, who are from just down the road (the Kandashar or Nairobi road, that is). Just watch them choke on their cheese and wine then!
At least Tourism Ireland might be happy. All these inter racial relationships will surely increase the numbers taking an Ireland vacation. Ireland Travel Information will have to set up new offices in the Congo and Brazil. The Four Seasons hotel in Ballasbridge will be inundated with enquiries for their ‘Pamper Packages” and Thornton’s Restaurant will be booked out for the year.

Happy Days !!

WHAT HOPE IRELAND’S BANKS?

On the 17th March that great American financial institution, Bear Sterns, effectively collapsed and had to be bailed out by the Federal Reserve in a scenario not entirely unlike what happened in the UK with Northern Rock bank. It has been dubbed as the Paddy’s’ Day massacre

The difference was that while the Federal Reserve - the American equivalent of the European Central Bank (ECB) - done so in partnership with another giant American bank, JP Morgan, in the UK the British Government stepped and actually guaranteed the depositors funds. Northern rock is now probably the safest bank in the world in which to put your money. It also has an Irish branch in Dublin and this British guarantee applies to Irish depositors whose savings are lodged there.
You may well ask what has all this to do with the ordinary Joe and Joan Mc Soap in Ireland. They are going about their business, putting some money away in various institutions and stocks, bonds and ordinary savings. Some may be on company pensions. Some may have their cash locked up in a capital-guaranteed product with some of the Irish banks, earning a low but steady return and allowing them to sleep peacefully at night.
Yet others, who may consider themselves more financially astute, have invested in complex products with their broker or financial adviser.
So, the current meltdown in the world’s financial markets has everything to do with the future of the Mc Soaps in rural or city Ireland. It is time to head to the pharmacy and get some strong sleeping pills. You may need them if cold sweat interruptions to your sleep are to be avoided.
Two weeks ago, Irish investors in a Friends First bond which was packaged by the now defunct ITSC lost every cent of their investment when ITSC ran into liquidity problems caused in no small measure by the sub-prime lending crisis that started in America.
This crisis erupted when greedy American banks issued mortgages to people at very high interest rates because the borrowers were high risk. The banks however figured that they had weighed the risk correctly and, while there would be a higher level of defaults, the high interest rates on those loans that were repaid would more than compensate for that downside. Just to be sure, however, they securitized (sold on) these loans to other banks worldwide to reduce their exposure.
It is a bit like a bookie laying off a big bet that they cannot handle if it were to come off.
The American banks were wrong. Defaults were huge. The NINJA’s, as the borrowers were known, (No Income No Job No Assets), didn’t pay the money back and never will. And when that happened banks all round the world, including Ireland, were left holding the baby as these securitized loan packages became weapons of mass financial destruction. Billions and billions were lost by banks.
Lack of trust and confidence has now developed to the point where wholesale banks are refusing to lend to each other - an essential trading activity that keeps the wheels of commerce moving.
The knock-on effects are potentially disastrous for everybody from the greatest movers and shakers to the ordinary Joe and Joan.
Share prices in banks and construction companies have nose-dived. That pension you were planning on to retire to Spain is shrinking away. The actions of greedy and irresponsible banks in offering loans to people who had a poor credit history will destroy the value of your pension.
Here in Ireland, the PR people are spinning soothing expressions of confidence in our main banks. We have no problems, they say. We are not exposed to any possible liquidity problems, they murmur calmly. This at a time when the stock market value of Irish banks is a third of what it was a year ago. No problems?
What nonsense!
It is of course a front designed to keep the confidence of their customers. In the back office, you can bet your life there is panic.
And if they are panicking, then you should be having heart attacks.
If a run comes on an Irish bank and it collapses you get between 5% and 20% of your deposits back at most. And you will wait for it.
It is laughable at times to see how institutions and politicians delude themselves into thinking that Ireland is somehow insulated from the problems of the world because of our great economic achievements as a small nation in the last 15 years. The accidental Celtic Tiger has coated us with the lacquer of invincibility, it seems.
Let us spell out the reality. One week ago, Bear Stearns had assets under management equal to eight times the GDP of Ireland! Today they are no more.

Our advices is take your money from your bank and lodge it in Northern Rock.
The British taxpayer is paying to guarantee you that it is safe.
It will save you a trip to the pharmacy for those sleeping tablets!

A Saint Patrick’s Morning : A poem for a dear friend of mine

The sun rises and gives off a glorious red hue,
the splendor which bathes the promising east.
Saint Patrick’s Day slowly creeps to life
As Ireland prepares to celebrate his feast.
The nurse moves silently around his bed
checking the many drips on a listless arm
that once had the power and strength
to tackle the hardest chore on the farm


On a cold and bright Saint Patrick’s Day
this man nourishes no desire or aspirations
to share his nurses cheery vision of how
she will partake in the day’s celebrations
another pulls the curtains and sunlight arrives
without invite or welcome to his sunken eyes.
He can muster only a cough to register his protest
that goes unheard among the gossip and the lies


More voices now converse loudly about him
careless and abstract as though he was not there.
Isolated by plumy tones of rich medical jargon
his miscomprehension a comfort blanket threadbare.
Dignity leaves you without smile or wave in this place
and tranquility is not yet the expected welcome guest
that comforts you in this surrendering dimension
and accompanies you to your one last harvest


He speaks little now, perfunctory is more convenient
than to give stature to false and optimistic platitude.
His mind is floundering in a deep dark forest of recess,
searching for the distant sunny clearing of gratitude.
Failing, for he is proud, and noble were his ways.
Of fair dealings, no man with a lie can ever unravel.
Transparency was his castle built high on a hill.
Decency and honour the avenue covered in finest gravel.