Savings Efficiency ones or just savings Public sector restraint And reducing waste New realities demanding These new measures For we all have to tighten our belts During this down-turn Which refuses to say What we are all saving for And who we all are While we still fight wars And order Trident Mark 2 As…
Clearances
From Dornoch we moved further north not as north as where she was born but north enough to understand; to understand her returning She sat there beneath the sculpture Of ‘The Emigrants’ at Helmsdale, Moved by the woman looking back To the strath that was once her home. For she too had to leave here…
Blunderwall
Originally published in Emancipation & Liberation Issue 8, Autumn 2004. This wall between us slowly grows slinking along the dusty earth like some snake in the desert sands Once in Jericho it fell down by those who now do the building the heirs of the trumpet blowers Once Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall,…
Beggar
They all have their stories. This one, young and ageing, says that his stepfather was ‘a brutal bastard.’ And in those greying eyes that have seen far too much I can still sense the child whose world went upside down. But this lad has moved on, now dreams of survival on the harsh, concrete street…
Beslan
by Jim Aitken Eliot said the game was up after the First World War. How wrong! For after the Second we fell into a state of disbelief that still must make us shake our heads. And on then to Hiroshima, To Korea down to Vietnam, And all the other names we call- Cambodia, Timor, Iraq.…
One Year On
by Jim Aitken One year on after the wind subsided and the floods disappeared there was still a scene reminiscent of some battle zone with dilapidated houses piles of debris lying there upturned and rusting cars broken boats moored in-land amid the empty, eerie desolation One year on he said New Orleans will be rebuilt…
Leaves In Leith
A clump of leaves lay by the road-side; crisp, hiddled and seemingly sedate; a soft patch-work quilt of golden rags. And as I walked on, a cold north wind, fierce and biting in the gutter, scattered the leaves in all directions And I saw demonstrators running in Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus, the occupying wind chasing…
Pariahs
Being cast as lower caste makes you an outcast makes you the one to blame The one to vilify the one to dominate the one to terrify and to humiliate But like new strains of flu or less useful poison immunities can form and a boldness surge forth With memories of old fresh as the…
Blunderwall
This wall between us slowly grows slinking along the dusty earth like some snake in the desert sands Once in Jericho it fell down by those who now do the building the heirs of the trumpet blowers Once Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall, Daniel read the words Mene, mene, tekel, parsin. The days…
David the detainee
by Jim Aitken Each night last week I have caught his eyes pleading for support and understanding Daily detainees for being himself saying the wrong things that he thought were right Speaking out of turn his essential self expressing himself amid hostile glares As they shout him down detain him further for interfering with assessments…