Tired Tigers Economic

(Gaelic Winds)

This
and their close
proximity
to humans
like cats
has led
to identity
mistaken.
Tigers
Africa
do not inhabit.
Humans
they
do not endanger.
Alone
maligned,
misunderstood
both great and small
these cats
foul names endure.
Celtic and other economic
foes
name rats like cats
insidiously inflicting
woes
Spaniards, Portuguese,
French and Greeks
must all bear the stench
with which death’s profit reeks
while severed from decaying
flesh
while enriching vile investors
fresh.
To keep the tiger myth afoot
requires news
and lies in weeks
(rendered harmless by so-called “leaks”)
To those
whose laboured
self-subsistence
slackens or sullies
even slight resistance.
Where feline and human
dignity remains
it is mercilessly hunted
wherever life is disdained.

T.P. Wilkinson, Dr. rer. pol. writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is author of Unbecoming American: A War Memoir and also Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa. Read other articles by T.P..