Copenhagen, 2009

By Badri Raina

At Copenhagen they met—

Greed and Need.

Greed said, “ cut down your need”;

Need said, “enough of your greed.”

Greed retorted, “the Earth cannot wait

For your need to become greed”;

Need rebutted, “you are a great one

To say so,

Having created all our need.”

Greed, you know,

Of course wished to have the cake

And eat it too;

Need knew if that continued to be done,

There would be no place for Need in the sun.

Everyone

Swore they would cut down their carbon,

And save the Earth

For a renewed birth,

But not before Capitalism had its full-bull run.

Greed said, “Capitalism is ours; we made it;

Leave it to us; you do that which is fit

For your station.

We shall carry the corporation

To your lands,

And thereby have less emissions on our hands.”

Need said, “emissions anywhere

Will not spare you,

Because the Earth is one;

Thus either all of us Capitalism shun,

Or we all roll down the mountain.”

The Bolivian, the Cuban, the Venezualan

Said, “the Earth cannot be parceled out

Anymore for anyone’s convenience;

The Capitalist lout

Had better see sense,

And recongnize

That the world’s mountains, icebergs,

Rivers and seas, air and fire

Are Socialist:, making no distinction;

Either everyone lives or everyone dies.”

Consternation followed upon

That recognition,

Obliging the chief spokesman of Greed

To exclaim:

“If indeed the Earth is Socialist,

It is best dead;

We shall go build Capitalism anew

In heaven or hell instead.

Come Christmas, we walk away from Jesus,

And walk into the Shade;

We swear upon the blood of the Barons,

We shall never let Capitalism fade.

Having brought down the Berlin Wall,

Wall Street shall stand unbroken,

However the Lehman’s and the others

May have rashly spoken.

Let the fatcats be the fatcats,

And the hungry be in the billions;

We have all the arsenal,

We shall train our guns

On all the world’s ragamuffins

Who have no reason to be;

And, being, who only obstruct

The Market from being free.

War shall be our answer

To that ultimate perfidy.”

Thus at Copenhagen

Did the Earth make up her mind

To put an end to mankind,

And some better species find.

badri.raina@gmail.com December 20, 2009