Following on from Charlottesville Magi Gibson has written this anti-fascist poem remembering the events of George Square the day after the Independence Referendum.

She writes about “being an eyewitness – indeed standing right next to – what unfolded there both when and after the Unionists arrived to celebrate their victory in the square. I was there by total chance, but stayed on to bear witness. Right up to the kettling into Buchanan Street by the mounted police.”

Her new book ‘Washing Hugh MacDiarmids Socks’ is out now by Luath.

Today – Tuesday 22nd August 3.30 – 4.45pm she appears with political cartoonist Greg Moodie, at The Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Street, Edinburgh to discuss how different art forms are used to deliver a political punch.

September 2014

A still September evening, we spill

from Queen Street Station, down

sun-streaked steps to George Square

where sad clumps of lads and lassies

wreathed in Saltires and tartan sit scattered,

grieving the death of their dream of a better nation.

One lad strums a battered guitar,

plastered with stickers curled at the edges,

Yes We Can, Forever Aye, Saor Alba.

In tiny kilts and tammies girls with tear-stained faces

hug and hum along, when suddenly the air vibrates,

a cavalcade of honking horns, a roisterous parade

of cars and vans revs up in a flap

of massive Union Jacks. Shouts and yells

crack the air. A crowd on foot invades the square

as if someone unseen somewhere has fired

a starting gun. Mums, dads, grannies all come

streaming in. Babies in buggies. And lo!

Britannia herself! Breasts high in a scarlet bra,

a swirling skirt of ribbons, red, white, blue, swirling

round her spray-tanned thighs. And women, waving

voddie bottles, singing like a choir of Furies

Ye can stick yer independence up yer arse!

And trickling through their midst, young bloods,

cans in fists, unfurling Union Jacks, the Red

Hand of Ulster, the Cross of St George.

The early evening sun’s still bright, but

shadows fall. A chill. We stand stock still.

Yet feel as if we’re slowly

sliding somewhere we don’t want to go.

Fists punch the air. The referendum victory’s theirs

and now they want the square. But that’s not all.

Men swarm around a statue, clamber up

its sides, neck veins bulge, forearms thrust,

faces gargoyle as they form a seething mass

Rule Britannia, Britannia Rules the Waves.

Capricious as cells splintering from a cancer clump,

random as sparks from a raging blaze, some lads

split from its seething edge. One singles out

a kilted lass, spits in her face, struts off, pleased

as a playground thug. Another shoves

a blonde girl to the ground, wrests her Saltire

from her hand, sneers at his mate, sets

the flag alight. They laugh. The ‘Yes’ kids don’t

retaliate. Defiantly they sing their Flower of Scotland

requiem, mill around, confused. Union families drift off home,

robbed of their celebration by their own.

Police arrive on horseback. Define a thin blue line.

A neo-fascist lights a flare. A flash of luminescent green.

Ejaculate of hate. The hydra-headed gargoyle vents its spleen

in vomit flame and battle screams. And we stand quietly,

wondering: Are these the Unionists who won the vote?

Or fascists spoiling for a fight?

These men who scream as if some primal fear’s

been stamped into their brain at birth, coded

in their DNA, as if afraid that all they have might

suddenly be snatched away if they don’t fight fight fight.

Or is it boredom’s pulled the pin from the grenade

of thwarted masculinity? Are they so tired of being bossed

around, being constantly ground down

by humdrum mind-numb jobs they cannot stand?

While in this fascist brother-band they find

a place to flex their biceps, beat their chests, wield a club,

a gun, a knife, an iron bar, say I am Warrior!

Just then their voices rise as one –

God Save Our Gracious Queen!

The Hydra they’ve become roars and rears,

but makes no move to charge. And we stand

where we always will, staring fascists down.

Knowing them for what they are. Little men

who measure out their lives in lager cans of fear

and hate, desperate to be no longer small,

unheard, unseen. No longer impotent and bored.

And just for this one moment, not easily ignored.

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