‘The Thieves of a Faraway Chamber’
© Joe Canning 2017. All Rights Reserved.

Whigs gathered in a foreign chamber,
“Hear, hears” mingled with the guffaws.
In an Irish field, a cleansing progressed.

Absentee masters cackled in their silks.
Laughing were the devil’s of destruction.
No dirt would stain their greedy hands.

Willing disciples, easily coaxed;
Laid low the neighbour’s homestead.
Cowards all in the care of constables.

Numbed victims questioned their belief.
Questioned the Almighty’s desertion.
Murmured while their young watched.

Felled walls stripped them of shelter.
Stones removed from humble abodes;
Warmed the fat cattle in new byres.

Wigged Westminster thieves celebrated.
Solvent was that cabinet of monsters;
But lost was their blackened hearts.