Sauce for the Goose

Double standards in public life is almost de rigueur these days. Anyone following the trial of a former banker and French presidential candidate or reading the unfolding revelations about HSBC’s Swiss branch’s services in the interests of big capital greed, will know what I mean.

In Ireland, the incumbent government has lurched from one disaster to another but holds, resolutely, to the patronising notion that it knows best.

To prove its point it persists with the intention to bill its overtaxed population for water they’ve already paid for; it denies private legislation drawn to overcome an appalling anomaly and allow women abortions in cases where full term delivery would result in the inevitable death of the mother; now it arrests peaceful protesters by sending six policemen to their doorstep in the early hours of the morning.

January 31, 2015 was the latest deadline Irish people were given to register for Irish Water, the private company set up to run the new water service, yet, even by their estimation, there is a shortfall of at least 50% of the population, on the register and, from now on, we’re on the clock and the bills will arrive in April. So I wrote this poem, Sauce for the Goose, in response and reaction.

 

 

Sauce for the Goose

will I pay?

for what? I say

water, today

no way

will I register?

for what? I say

water, today

no way

Yes, I will register

my anger and disgust

at the wholesale

greed and lust

because I will pay

for others��� avarice

and acquisition

and grotesque ostentation

while they walk free

as though protected

by misguided misconception

of lese majeste

justice, we seek

for the cold and the meek,

the dispossessed and hungry

a bed for the sick, a smile for the lonely

balance, we seek,

not only in budgets

ledgers or sheets,

but in human relations, the man in the street

They will register our resistance

while they balance their books

glancing with fear and suspicion

at our rueful looks

As they pay off the fiscal burden

like a jaded puppy with an old bone

wagging its tail, to be thanked

by Eurocrats, for a job well done

But when the figures are added

and the coffers depleted

there remains a debt unpaid

though not in coin

or platitudes

or threats to a scolded child,

as the elected lacky

turns boss for those who foot the bill

and tell us they know best

so hush, now

don���t be shouting

or we���ll knock you in the morning

and take you down

before you jet away,

no, I���m wrong,

before you question our right

to do what is wrong,

so let the poor go hungry

we���ll take your homes

to feather our pension cushioned nests

while tax cheats

fill the election war chests

before flying home

to their sun drenched havens

So what���s sauce for the goose

should be sauce for the gander

and if they won���t pay,

I won���t either