History in Time , History in Rhyme.

History in time, History in Rhyme

By

Mark J. Guertin

Man started out,

Living in caves,

Drawing pictures on walls,

Was all the rage.

Then one day,

They discovered fire,

The cooking of food,

And wheels without tires.

From there,

They moved out,

And oh how they grew,

They became the families,

Of me and you.

Moving on to China, Greece,

London and France,

They stopped wearing togas,

Started wearing fancy pants.

In Fourteen hundred and ninety two,

Columbus sailed the ocean blue,

Why did he do, what he do?

To prove the world was round to me and you.

In Sixteen twenty,

Over in Plymouth Bay,

The Pilgrims landed,

On a blustery day.

The Indians taught them,

 How to live off the land,

Planting potatoes, corn,

Turnips and yams.

The war of independence,

Was over a tax on tea.

As Revere watched for,

One if by land,

And two if by sea.

A shot was then heard,

All around the world,

And the stars and stripes,

Were now unfurled.

The years past,

And we had the Civil war,

When Abe Lincoln spoke of,

Seven Years and Four score.

Teddy Roosevelt,   

Was always rough and ready,

To bring us into,

The twentieth century.

World war one,

Was fought over there,

Our soldiers came home to,

Tons of love to spare.

A decade of good times,

Prohibition, illegal gin,

Right before the worldwide depression,

Did set in.

F.D.R. came along,

During those turbulent years,

Made us once more strong,

Said we have nothing to fear,

Pearl Harbor was bombed,

And we headed off to war,

On the German soils,

And the Japanese shores.

Truman had the Atom bomb,

Thrown into his lap,

So he said “The Buck stops here!”,

Enough of this crap!”

Enola Gay flew,

And heated the wind,

And that is how,

The nuclear age did begin.

We loved Ike,

For a total of eight,

McCarthy’s red scare,

Was nothing but fake.

The Sixties came,

And we went to the moon,

The Kennedys and King,

We lost them too soon.

Vietnam, Demonstrations,

Lots of Strife,

Than Disco came,

And we danced into a new life.

With eight minutes missing,

Nixon resigned in disgrace,

As Ford came in tripping,

All over the place.

Carter voted in,

And lowered the heat,

Iran took our people hostage.   

Burned our flags in their streets.

Regan’s’ “trickle down!”

Bush’s “points of light!”

Clintons “Era of believing ”

And we were feeling alright.

George W came,

And he was not meek,

As the Twin towers fell,

Showed the world we were not weak.

Corporate greed, 

Unemployment unbound,

Obama and Boehner,

A government shut down.

And this where we stand,

Or so it seems to me,

Hoped you enjoyed my loped sided,

Spin on history.

©2014   Mark J. Guertin

I submitted this to  Manchester's town poet  contest but  didn't get picked !