Note:
Originally I was going to post this poem a couple of months ago. Tragically, at that time, two young female police officers were murdered in Greater Manchester. I therefore delayed posting until now as I do not wish for any of my poetry to be perceived as attacking ordinary working people doing their jobs.
Oh to be a Policeman was written in1984 during the miners strike, when I personally experienced how the police were being used to perpetrate class warfare.
Has anything changed since then? Hardly: Consider how the South Yorkshire police force covered up evidence from the Hillsborough tragedy, Remember how the Metropolitan police were complicit in the recent phone tapping scandal. Routinely, innocent demonstrators are attacked and beaten up by police officers. Disgracefully; armed police continue to shoot unarmed civilians on the streets of this country.
So, read the poem, but don't enjoy it!
I didn't enjoy writting it. In 1984 I was bloody angry!:
Oh to be a Policeman
Oh to be a Policeman
under the Thatcher regime,
swinging a solid truncheon
ignoring pickets scream,
confronting all those 'nig nogs'
smiling as you do,
whispering under your breath;
" I'll get you".
Oh to be a Policeman
in 1984,
the community face of fascism
in the British civil war.
Stormtroopers in the SPG,
gestapo at the station,
blitzkreig on the picket line,
then comes the interrogation:
"political beliefs?"
" at elections, how do you vote?"
a tape playing under the desk
and a sergeant taking notes.
Oh to be a Policeman
whilst children disappear,
maniacs get away with murder
and women live in fear.
Those stoic faceless fiends
known as the boys in blue,
no time to catch criminals.
They're too busy watching you.
Oh to be a Policeman
in a hovering eye in the sky
a data bank in Hendon,
the end of freedom is nigh.
Oh to be a Policeman
with the working class as bait,
caught hook line and sinker
by the poachers of the state.
Capability Red 1984
