Bankers Donate their Bonuses to Haiti

At a boardroom meeting
late last night
the IMF took the unprecendented step
of cancelling all £546m of the devastated island's debt.

This was swiftly followed by a unanimous vote
of Wall Street's finest pin-striped sharks,
Tokyo's biggest pirhanas,
London's cod-financiers,

in favour of donating last year's bumper banker catch
- £140 billion from the US alone -
to starving, homeless, Haitians
adrift without housing, schools, medical care or basic sanitation,

the rest to be placed in a fund
to be used as and when needed
by other former colonies
with shattered infrastructures and ruined economies.

What a crazy old planet we live on! we'll say
where one man's lifestyle can finance another man's country.
Such a blessing, we will murmur
that some good can come from such tragedy

as we study the frightened women's faces
while they chant songs to ward off rapists,
and hear screams from backstreet amputations
as jailbreaks and lootings "exacerbate an already fragile situation"
we know we can turn off the TV and lie down in beds free from shame
safe in the knowledge we live in a world where everyone else can do the same.