Updated 00:32, June the 3rd, 2009
The banker’s lament
Woe am I now, for good times have gone.My vacation, cancelled. My savings, withdrawn.
Bailouts they came and bailouts they went.
Before it arrived, the money was spent.
Bad news comes each day. How can I endure when my annual bonus is missing a fig-ure?
And all I can do is sit here and wonder what it’ll be like when the banks all go under.
Murray Hill is deserted, quiet is the Street.
And on West 14th they’re back packing meat.
No models, or bottles, in a market so bear.
My Hamptons home, now a Hamptons share.
The trains are still crowded, but to my chagrin my friends now head south, out to dirty Brooklyn.
Or worse, to New Jersey, or even to Queens, where only the clubs are deader than the dreams.
And back in the city, the cranes all come down.
Not a condo is sold in this forsaken town.
Housing’s a storm, and I at the center watch my former co-op fill up with renters.
With neighbors like these, tell me how will I fare, when those breathing free are breathing my air?
The wretched refuse of those teeming shores are tossing a tempest outside of my door!
So sing long the praises of days that have passed, and remember a time when it wasn’t so bad.
When my friends and I thought it was fun to pay $300 for a bottle of rum.
But I shall not dwell, or stew in my pain.
Instead I’ll go out to see what remains, of a city once grand, though I truly do fear I cannot get by on $175,000 a year.