Plague Songs - The Banquet / by Rich Hobbs

The bankers and the viruses

Arranged to have a dinner

Where the viruses looked tired

And the bankers slightly thinner.

The viruses proposed a toast:

“Chaos! And Bonhomie!

Bonded the way that both of us

Crashed the Economy!”

The bankers bridled. Several laughed.

A fat one drawled: “Pur-leeeze!

We’re the Engines of Prosperity!

And you’re just a disease!

And we’re nothing like you!

This comparison’s obscene!

And we’ll prove it by investing

To create a new vaccine!”

“Speaking,” the viruses replied,

“As disease to disease,

There’s no need to display your guilt-

Edged insecurities!

Be proud of your achievements

And how you make your cash!

We’ve loved ‘08 and ‘29

And every other Crash!

“True, you could be more proactive;

Fewer sins of omission,

But you make up for that with the monstrous

Size of your commission!

It’s just you lack all agency,

Just do what bankers do,

Which lacks the subtle beauty

Of a nasty bout of flu!

But still, your avarice and greed,

Like our infectious ways

Have thankfully hastened mankind

Towards the End of Days!

With poverty and misery

And all kinds of how d’you do!

Eventually we’ll kill them off

Together! Cheers! Salut!”

The bankers rose in fury

At the speaking of this libel;

Respectable and titled, they flung

“Who’s Who” like a bible!

Screamed “We will make a vaccine

That will see you commies off!”

But in their midst a banker

At this point began to cough.

You remember that scene near the end

Of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”?

Like that, but as to details

I shall leave you in the dark.

Many of those bankers died,

Others were very ill.

The viruses then did the decent thing

And paid the bill