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TWO ENDINGS

TWO ENDINGS

1 May 2026 /Posted byRobert Atkins
Post Views: 429
Protests during the 1926 General Strike. Public Domain

by Rob Atkins

It must have been like this
As the English matriarch failed,
The menfolk fuelling empire
The women taking over by the bed;
Some of them she bore,
The rest she helped give birth
And now they walk all along the rows
To help her over,
Emancipated.

Down the corner shop, some spuds,
A couple of carrots,
A big onion:
The last strike bit hard,
The General yet to come,
To be prepared;
Curse the name of Churchill, they spit
And pour old stock into the big pot,
Skimming off the froth.

From hour to hour she’s much the same,
Today from day to day declining;
Some say a week,
Maybe a little more
But not as much as ten days;
Almost a century will evaporate
To Somerset and Birmingham,
West Wales, Blaina, Cwmtillery:
As it was, it is and ever shall be.

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About Author

Robert Atkins

Robert Atkins is a retired Baptist minister from South Wales but continues to teach French and music. More than twenty of his original songs for Frost at Midnight have been featured on BBC radio. He has recently begun writing poetry and has been published in Penstricken, Mad Persona and in French and English in the International Poetry Review. Son of Jonah: A Child’s Christmas in a Whale will appear as an audiobook in September 2026. He is married with three adult children and a granddaughter.

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