Body Corporate

By name or number – matters not –
This Corporation that I've got
Can do ’bout anything it please
And be in health or on its knees.

It is a fiction, yes sir-y
This figment in society
A game that's played by you and me
This operating entity.

It lasts each day at People's whim
So long as it lets value in
Which otherwise could not transpire
Through work that's contracted for hire.

Oh yes, it hires just like someone
Or group of ones – partners in some
Adventure into jointly walk
Who've linked their arms with common talk –

But this is different – hiring is –
By ‘entity’ in corporate biz;
It posits an ethereal thane
That hires its crew for Spanish Main.

The first, it's said, laid concept out
A Royal charter made that lout
Who hired its pirates for the sea.
As Hudson's Bay trade-company.

The limits set were wide indeed –
From center in that in land sea
All lands whose rivers flowed their way
Was theirs to use after that day –

When this first charter brought to birth
This ‘entity’– a first on Earth –
And set a pattern we still use
Improved, empowered, for common use.

For several hundred years it stayed
About the same – great profits made –
Till people found it troublesome
And bought out charter-rights for sum.

And sweet a deal it was I'd say
With rights to resource – to this day –
The cash and perks new clauses said
Were there so entity be fed –

Not to forever, but through change,
For ‘fair is fair’ here on the range;
And this transitioned entity
Lives on today as you can see –

As you drive in to pen a shift
In scale and scope which you did sift –
Cast eyes to right in city's core
And view their monumental store.

For it's in change the fiction shows
Its greatest value to all those
Who chose to walk some road as one
By pooling resource – ‘share for sum’.

For we, as owners, one or more,
Ask government to birth not ‘store’,
But ‘entity’ with lasting ‘life’
To weather change and awkward strife.

We get a name or numbered Co
And off into the future go
It's Charter's terms quite broad indeed
Which lets it shift and change with need.

Most owners laugh and say ‘Return
Is all I want – it lets me earn
Some extra cash which meets my needs
Don't bother me with corporate deeds.

But some, because of interest theirs
Wish to direct business affairs
Not just as hirelings in that ‘Co’
But more, deciding where to go.

They act as spokesman for the rest
And in that task they do their best
To face each issue, change, and shift,
So over reefs their barge they lift.

For though this entity exists
It cannot do so ’cept its lists
Of those directing, taking care,
Has one or more name entered there.

For it's a fiction – has no brain –
Thus quite dependent must remain
On guidance from its owning folk
Who to the government thus spoke.

When owners old or tired get
The entity is passed, and yet,
No ripples felt by those now blessed
Buy goods and services possessed --

Or by employees of the firm
Who for a stable life do yearn;
For all they care is, “Can this Co
Help me in life my way to go?”

They've changed the rules now several times
On how directors, owners, mind
The Corp affairs of entities
So all the players end up pleased.

Some want an entity for life
Of safety, in the global strife;
For some an entity to last
Beyond the time they have a blast;

Some want it so they all can share
A jointly walk through foul or fair;
Some use it to express their view –
A better life for me and you.

And some say it's an art-form theirs
Who's entity they say compares
To works in marble, paint, or clay,
Yet lives and breathes – they're entity;

As many as these entities
Are reasons they exist, you see.
So, like a potter with his clay,
Spin us a corporate entity.

navigation