The Parasite’s “If…“

IF you can stay in post when all about you
Are being sacked and blaming it on you,
If you retire just as we start to doubt you,
And claim your pension early, lucky you;

If you can hate and not be tired by hating,
Or being talked about, respond in lies,
Or being loved, just don’t give way to loving,
And yet keep cool and watchful, staying wise;

If you can scheme – and make those schemes your master,
If you can plot – and backstab just the same,
Then trumpet Triumph and obscure Disaster,
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can’t bear to hear the words you’ve spoken,
Described by staff as “white doves masking hawks”,
Or watch the j-a-r-g-o-n that you so love broken,
But stoop and build it up with ‘toolbox talks’;

If you can burn the heap of all your shreddings,
Then format hard drives, covering your tracks,
And win, as those onside attend your weddings,
And never breathe a word of their paybacks;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To twist the knife until the public’s dead,
And so keep stabbing when there’s nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: ‘Dick Head!’

If you can talk with crowds pretending virtue,
Or meet with Queens to clutch your CBE,
If neither foes nor sycophants can hurt you,
And naive “plebs” miss your hypocrisy;

If you can dodge our lame, forgiving judges
With forty years of lies, half-truths and shite,
Yours is ‘Success!!’, no tricks, no lies, no fudges,
And – which is more – you’ll be a parasite!

with apologies to Rudyard…