Dr David McKinstry Teaches History at Holyrood Secondary in Glasgow.
The 70s
A more naïve and innocent time
Where no one scratched the head,
Whilst Eric and Ernie
Were sharing a double bed.
The miners were still underground
Whilst the Wombles were overground
And wombling free,
Virginia won Wimbledon
In the silver jubilee.
The only platforms
Were of oil and of shoes,
Whilst ‘Love Thy Neighbour’
Broadcast racist views.
Woolies and Pick ‘n’ Mix
Were our weekly treat,
Whilst thirteen lay dead
On Derry Street.
The seventies, a decade
Of riotous bad taste,
Whilst working people had rights
Before Thatcher’s industrial waste.
The Brexit Boat
HMS Enterprise was launched
With great fanfare by his majesty Rees-Mogg,
On the post Brexit economic seas
With Gove as Captain Ideologue
Captain Gove’s ship O’ fools
Sails towards Asian shores,
Too woo investors
From the land of silk and money,
But Chinese memories are long
Filled with opium wars,
Gunboats and the annexing of Hong Kong.
Whilst fool Britannia allows Huawei
To rule our airwaves,
All our captain can offer are freeports
And workers’ rights graves.
Our ship limps on
And docks at US port
Shoring up the ‘Special Relationship’
Is our goal,
But we are firmly retold
We have lost an Empire
And yet to find a role.
West Indies is the Enterprise’s
Next port of call,
Trying to find new trade
Other than old time molasses,
But they remind us of Windrush
And giving their ancestors fifty lashes.
Our ship is taking in water
In a globalization storm,
But the captain of HMS Enterprise
Is too financially astute to go down
With Britannia’s sinking boat,
Having an offshore account
Keeping himself financially afloat.
David Betteridge is the author and editor of collections of poems and examples of his other poems can be found at https://www.culturematters.org.uk/
Echoing The Arch: In memory of Desmond Tutu (1931-2021)
He was portrayed as a dancing man,
and one given to laughter,
but he marched as often as he danced,
and he wept.
He marched at risk of his life
for justice and for peace.
He wept at their denial,
and at their breach.
How long, he cried, echoing the Psalmist,
how long shall I take counsel in my soul,
having sorrow in my heart daily?
He is remembered for his consoling
and for his reconciling;
but he as often challenged and confronted,
saying to his allies, when he thought
them wrong, as to his foes,
Stop and No and How long?
A poor boy, he became rich in talent;
he out-scholared his teachers;
a servant of his God, he led peoples
and nations; not proud,
he boldly assumed the role of Moses
facing down Pharaohs;
he made his words a sword,
and the course of his life
a long battleground.
Look to the rock from which
you were hewn, he exhorted,
echoing Isaiah.
He became that rock,
hard, resistant, a sure place
on which to build.
His arch spanned great divides;
he embraced spectrums of folk,
seeing them as one;
he was a rainbow of hope,
even when others saw none.
Lighten mine eyes, he prayed,
lest I sleep the sleep of death.
Dead now, sleeping now,
he lives on, lightening our eyes,
still dancing and marching,
and laughing and weeping
as we remember him,
still consoling and reconciling,
and challenging and confronting.
It falls to us and others now
to look to our own rock
and become it,
and to echo the arch
that was this great warrior.