“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”—stock exhange proverb
Who first tamed a pig—no doubt, a litter
Of piglets orphaned in some bosky dell—
Made a metaphor for greed’s devotees as well.
Hogs serve, too, as patterns for the jerks
Who rough-hew lives and call it “public works”
And plutocrats who have them at their beck and call.
“If birds didn’t exist, would planes?”*
If pigs didn’t exist, would politicians?
We see in Nature’s drafts the late perfected skills
That serve to chain the planet to their wills.
There are exceptions to this rule, of course,
though seldom leaders on the bourse.
The weasel's not a model for the billionaire.
The simile’s unfair—mustelids make honest kills.
Envoi
“ . . . there is boundless theft In limited professions.”—Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, act 4, scene 3
*Reddit post.