Conney Catching* Poem by Sidi Mahtrow

When you chase a rabbit
(The rabbit, of course, isn't there)
But until one tries to catch it,
You don't know or even care.

Conney Catching is always to be seen
Where the politics of economics
Are practiced by those of respectable mein
In the Nation's highest offices
(Where not all is what it seems.)

When they chase that which is invisible
They hardly are to blame, for what happens
For clearly, the Conney is divisible
Into the waiting banker's pens
(On paper everything is possible.)

As Thomas Decker** taught us
So many years ago
His handbook was written just
So that all Gulls would know
(The meaning of in God we Trust.)

For the mark is always
Like a rabbit in bright light's eye
Who freezes and stiffly lays
For plucking by the by
(While those in the shadows quickly fade away.)

And when it's all over
And the shouting is done it seems
The moneyed are in clover,
The victim's poke is clean
(And Cooneys have lost whatever skin
They put in the game they never win.)



A Notable Discovery of Coosnage (1591) , the Second part of Conny-Catching (1591) , The Defence of Conny-catching(1592) , The Blacke Bookes Messenger (1592) , Robert Greene

Gulls Handbook (1609) , Thomas Decker