Pleasing political poems aplenty
Poems from Mathew Knights and Dr David McKinstry.
Based in Arbroath, Matthew Knights is a writer and creative writing tutor (www.matthewknights.co.uk) and Artistic Director at the Knights Theatre Company (www.knightstheatre.co.uk)
Jennie Lee
Straight-faced woman
With a magnificent heart
The type to bear arms
In other ages and places
In this
Where she found herself instead
Part of a movement which had finally led
To a stable island of progress
She became a conduit
Between the old socialism and a new
Liberalism resurgent
Young and fresh and carefree, naïve
Nothing like Jennie Lee
History then leaned in
And growled
‘Act now, and institute a lasting truce’
Which has yet turned out to be
A dream just like the one before
And the one before that.
The old ghosts stir,
We do not see her type
They are relentlessly held back
Even as they strain to make
This century the women’s century.
Mary Brooksbank
There is no truth
Just what you believe
And are taught
And she
Was one who knew
And lived and breathed
The workers’ art
Which like the workers’ heart
Is a battered and bruised
And terrific weapon.
Dr David McKinstry Teaches History at Holyrood Secondary in Glasgow.
The Financial Crisis
From Prime Minister
To Downing Street cat,
All could smell greed
From a city rat.
Sell, Sell, Sell
Was the market mantra
On Sub-prime,
But no-one took stock
Until the fall
Of Northern Rock.
The public demanded
That someone had to pay,
So bankers duly served up
‘Fred the Shred’
Then retreated to their old boys’ club
With no blue bloodshed.
Tough talk on bankers pay
Was only government teasing,
Instead they were treated
To quantitative easing.
The financial crisis
Caused by light touch regulation,
Allowing the corrupt
To punt sub-prime,
A system rotten to its core
And living on borrowed time.
Jimmy Reid
Like his ancestral brothers in arms
James Connolly and John MacLean,
He fought for workers’ rights
And their labour gain.
Their work-in was
Not for luxury to savour,
But common decency
And respect for their labour.
He reminded them
That dignity and discipline
Would get government thinking,
That meant sober purpose
And nae drinking.
He took his authority
From the Upper Clyde community,
But understood the world was watching
A display of workers unity.
Asylum Seekers boating
Across the channel,
Then forced onto a Boeing
Rwanda bound,
Someone pray tell
The home secretary,
Such naked premiership ambition
‘Is not pretty, Patel!’
No space in our sceptred isle
To honour international law
And play fair,
Unless the city can launder
Your dirty money
Whilst you reside in Mayfair.
No room at the inn
In our little Britain
To give the desperate a new start
Unless, ‘Of course come in’
If you are a Russian oligarch.
Post-Brexit Britain
Has shut up shop
And closed its compassion doors,
Unless you have enough dirty cash
To buy at our Oxford Street stores.
Glasgow Sums: A view from my classroom desk
I’m no maths man
But here is my intent
To explain simply,
What is a Glaswegian
Forty percent?
Forty percent
Equals four over ten,
Or approximately
Two score,
Or zero point four,
Or Glaswegian weans
Growing up poor.
It doesn’t matter
If I add or subtract,
Forty percent grow up poor
Is a statistical fact.
That’s what I meant
When I started to
Count a Glaswegian
Forty percent.
