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Captain Hindsight

Calling Captain Hindsight, where the heck are you?
The table booked for one-fifteen and now it’s ten-past-two,
The waiting staff are anxious, they want me to move on,
Their patience was exhausted as I sat buttering a scone.

I dawdled on arrival though the menu is quite clear,
I fiddled with my glasses whenever waitresses came near,
I nibbled on some poppadoms and slowly sipped my soup
But they’re keen to move this table now, to accommodate a group.

So come in Captain Hindsight, I need you on the line,
Just Tweet a cute emoji if you’re still a friend of mine,
You must be getting hungry, clear your diary, find some foods,
The hosts of countless phone-ins are simply spouting platitudes.

Is it really sensible to let our steelworks close,
Should Boohoo use slave labour to stitch our discount clothes?
Was breaking-up the railways a really mad idea?
Dare we book a holiday for May or June next year?

Reveal yourself on Tik-Tok or maybe Instagram,
This is no time to reject toys or throw them from your pram.
Laying-low is not required they need you on the news
There are many here among us who would gladly steal your shoes.

Just who imagined gantries over motorways were sane   
When stranded vehicles occasionally block the left-hand lane?
Should crops be decimated by barbarians hare-coursing
As some tally-up donations from the firms they like endorsing?

The nurses and the warehousemen all need your sound advice
Without this there’s an endless risk they’ll run around like mice.
Public trust in newspapers will ebb away and lapse,
With schisms on the increase we need you to say “Perhaps.”

So please stay in our consciousness - like Robin Hood or Santa
Without your wise opinions, LBC* will lose its banter.
When the bar stools are in use again we shan’t know what to say,
So come back Captain Hindsight, please don’t go away!

* LBC is an English language radio station highly reliant upon telephone calls from its listeners. This poem was first published by Poets Unite Worldwide on 25th September 2021.

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