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Squillions

It’s not that I’m flaunting my money –
My mansions are not very grand –
It’s just that it’s not very funny
When your name is dismissed out of hand:
Someone might think that I didn’t exist
If they saw how far down I’ve been placed on the list.

To you it’s a couple of squillion
And not much about which to bitch –
But for me it’s like riding a pillion
Hanging on to the shirts of the rich:
Your queen with her trivial sceptres and orbs
Could not grasp what it means to be snubbed thus by Forbes.

I know there are penniless fellows
(I’ve read of their rags in Hello!)
Who don’t own the wealth of bordellos,
Or gazillions of oil-wells. It’s so.
But this insult reduces me quite to a torpor –
They might as well print that I’m merely a pauper.

Wealth’s a competitive hobby,
Like wars, and religions, and power:
Probably I may seem snobby
And possibly also quite sour –
But how would you feel if dismissed for a song,
If they added your squillions up, and were wrong.


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Squillions

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has refused to have anything more to do with Forbes Magazine after they underestimated his wealth by eight to ten billion, and made him only the twenty-sixth richest person in the world.
 


6 March 2013

POETRY KIT WEBRING

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