Citation
Lee, T.A. (2022), "Blame Luca", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 35 No. 6, pp. 1489-1491. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-08-2022-170
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited
A familiar tale of loss and pain
A corporate crash of blinding speed
When boom flies out and bust draws near
And markets flood with tears of rage
And media rants with great intent
To paint a scene to fuel a fire
A question asked with no response
Like Pavlov's dog, a tale of blame
Time passes by and crash has come
No balm to sooth the gaping wound
Of profit gone and loss drawn near
Despite a formal exaltation
Compliant numbers true and fair
On pages gloss and pictures too
Ruin is here, the pain is real
A question asked with no response
Like Pavlov's dog, a tale of blame
Jobs no more, no toil to moan
Suppliers count a cliff-edge cost
No dividend to fill the pot
Executives miss the private jet
And compensation too large to spend
No meteor lights the corporate sky
Just a fee to sequestrate
To seize the asset, pay the debt
Contemplate the boom and bust
A question asked with no response
Like Pavlov's dog, a tale of blame
Politicians join the scene
And regulators scan a sorry mess
Find a way to quell the storm
About some numbers so precise
On pages gloss and pictures too
Reports appear to sooth the pain
Do this, do that, do something more
Do govern in a better way
With standards that invent the wheel
And ask the auditor to explain
How true and fair the numbers were
A question asked with no response
Like Pavlov's dog, a tale of blame
Another day, another crash
With pain and loss and tears of rage
And standards that invent the wheel
So time to stop, to clear the mind
To seek an answer in mists of time
When rebirth came to sunnier climes
And Luca was a man of God
The Pope's good friend, da Vinci too
A man of letters when math was king
And symmetry eased the banker's fear
When balance took an opposite form
Of ins and outs, and lefts and rights
A double entry for business types
Of debt and cash and stock too old
Of what is gained and what is lost
On journeys near and journeys far
Memory appears in matrix cells
Declaring cost of business done
No question asked with no response
No Pavlov's dog, no tale of blame
Luca saw the ledger's aim
With entries made in name of God
And bless the print of Gutenberg
So knowledge reaches distant parts
Luca's gift to generations new
Symmetry for the bank and merchant house
Please practice Luca without regard
No question asked with no response
No Pavlov's dog, no tale of blame
That is until the profession rises
And gentle accountants act as one
To seize the force of Larson's tale
Monopolize the knowledge base
Exclude the ignorant who fail the test
Embrace the matrix Luca gave
Apply some tricks he did not know
To bake a cake of profit large
Use lefts and rights and ins and outs
For judgment makes the cake grow big
When boom appears before the bust
And question asked without response
Like Pavlov's dog, the tale of blame
Gentle accountants close their rank
Capture knowledge as their own
But Luca gave it all away
To bankers, merchants, teachers too
In cities where rebirth was known
A branch of math in chapter bound
The print of Gutenberg reaches out
To Scots and Dutch and English too
And then to colonies far and wide
So gentle accountant cannot control
A monopoly he never owned
When Luca caste the game abroad
In rebirth times, in name of God
A question asked with no response
Like Pavlov's dog, a tale of blame
So bust will come and boom must go
A familiar tale of profit dust
No standard can remove the pain
Of knowledge lost when rebirth came
When pious Luca seized his chance
To elevate the ins and outs
To raise them to a form of math
To please a patron in the town
But Luca failed to see the trick
When Gutenberg freed the ins and outs
In ledger form in name of God
The shapes of numbers on a page
That states a truth in fairness terms
A question asked with no response
Like Pavlov's dog, a tale of blame