Lights Out

By Lynn Ockersz

Lights go out, one by one,

As darkness mingles with desolation,

Among people left to their devices,

Their hearths dimming by the hour,

Amid the thinning aroma in eating places,

While hand-to-mouth micro-businesses,

Forlornly put up their worn-out shutters,

Since there’s no life-line for the afflicted,

And begging, for some, becomes an option,

And this may not seem a bad proposition,

For those with a shrewd disposition,

Since some in the begging industry,

Just across the Palk Strait waters,

Have graduated from rags to riches,

And even doled out their life’s savings,

To the bankrupt nation seeking IMF solace;

But these recession time ironies apart,

Here’s what must be closely pondered;

No greater blight could afflict a nation,

That says its free of colonial shackles,

Than for its ‘Reps’ to fall before the Empire.