Thought it was America - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

Is there anything which isn’t made in China?
The answer is… of course there is, the question
was rhetorical, a crude attempt to palliate
China’s late renaissance; eighty years ago you’d say
that nothing was – or nothing much that
mattered was, and still been wrong.

I’d clipped my nails, don’t like them long and chanced
to read the label on the tool, I thought it read
‘Made in China’, there’s the fool. It wasn’t, had
been made next door, okay it’s nearly China but
before we criticize my knowledge of geography, where
would you say Korea came in terms of foreign policy?

Who would, you think, influence the ginkgo country
most? And while we gabble on that point, why do we pay
much more for petrol now than was the case ten years
ago? It hasn’t showed a causal raise in costs that makes
the price okay, although inflation sways much more these
days than all those years ago. And ponder on some more.

The reason to the fore, at least in ‘Honest (as the day as
short)’ Johnny Howard’s call, is bloody China. He blames
the Chinese for the hike, says their growth was all it
takes to push the market price beyond our reach. It’s not
excise or foreign debt, but Chinese being just like us.
Crikey, all the time I thought it was America!
© I.D. Carswell