All hail the power of Mammon’s names

(inspired by a 1919 US Navy Song Book)

Social distancing 100 years ago

All hailed the power of Mammon’s names,
As debtors prostrate fall
Brought forth they Detrick’s vials and then
Crowned our lungs and all,
Brought forth to Wuhan
Brought forth to Teheran
And while at it, why not Milan.
Crowned by lords, them all.

Bankers, whose love can never forget
Speculations rise and fall
Spread their hands and taxed all lands
Crowned our lungs and all
Spread their hands and cursed all lands
Crowned by lords, them all.

Let every decent being alive
Before the world too falls
To those all freedom and crime deny
Who for greed our humanity do defy
And crush them before us all.

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..