Breaking the Union

Adorned with sprays
of summer flowers,
the tiny cup brimmed
with her memories.

He snatched.
Threw.
Smithereens
across the kitchen floor.

Cradling its saucer,
in silent tears,
she fled.

He played ever louder.
Later, he found her note.

Standing in an emptiness
too quiet,
he knew
he’d broken
everything.

© Gill Dunstan
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The Suitcase

This case is battered, old.
Each day another piece succumbs
to the dark ravages of encroaching time.

Yet it holds tapestries, embroidered
with rich silks and one, as bright as any,
a work in progress still.

So do not hang your dreadful DNR
above my bed until the moths get in
and chew black holes throughout the treasured fabrics
of my mind.

© Gill Dunstan
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The Suitcase

His home, while
He struggled
And sweated
In the jungle;

My mother’s letters
Bundled in his uniform,
Dreams, censored
Written ahead of him.

In the family home,
Empty in a cupboard;
Births, deaths pass;

Now in a barn in Devon.
I can’t let it go.

© Valerie Taylor
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A complex traveller

We found a rampant garden of delights in the conservatory, pressed against the panes: photographs of houses and people we didn’t recognise, air mail letters from Indian lovers, antique lace collars, babies shoes, an engraved Dunhill lighter, sixteen five-year diaries… 

And we’d assumed her effects wouldn't fit inside one suitcase.

© Sophia Roberts
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Breaking up the Union

Death to the dictator,

      the power-glutton thief!

We'll march through streets and buildings

     smash the icons crowd the squares

     scorning guns and tear-gas

We'll destroy the scheming bears.

We'll hoist the flag of freedom

     and justice will be done.

I'll lead you to nirvana, yes,

I'll be the promised one.

Death to the dictator!

© Sheila Rogers
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Breaking up the Union

The breaking up of The Union – a near miss.
So tensely debated, talked about and
Twisted. All those mothers, strong women
And school kids, maybe they saw Mr. Salmond
as some misogynist.
All the Yes vote is followed, make his story
Now the whole debate seems little more than that,
Just History.

© Isabel Hare
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Breaking Apart the Union: 1975

“You’re entitled to wear the Macleod tartan,” my Grandmother said encouragingly, noticing my gaze had fallen on a photograph of a white kneed, kilted cousin.

I, long haired, wearing pre-punk loons and a cheesecloth shirt under an army-surplus greatcoat, wondered why anyone would ever wish to look so utterly ridiculous.

© Tim Scott
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Road side orphan

Abandoned child at the road side
Not expected to thrive and bloom
Careless seed tossed to the edges
No bright future seen for her

Lonely pale head tilted upwards
Perfect view of distant fields

Ripened seed heads shamefully hanging
Knowing they will lose her again

In sharp contrast to black faces
Bright yellow in their forgotten sun
Her stance childlike and buoyant
Theirs sinking lower toward the soil

As they meet the harvest blade wheel
Broken bracts but heads intact
No more nodding in wind time rhythm

Seed pods yielding to start again

Now she views the empty furrows
Feeling barren and not sure why
Seen by no one but the walkers

Stopped in their tracks
by her cadmium smile

© Liz Redfern
All rights reserved

Anvil of freedom

Solid, cold, sparking in bright sunlight
Forging, moulding, shaping the steel

Hammering sweat with strength into objects
bought by farmers, warriors, thieves

Linked by chains that hold them together
for crimes they did not commit

With a strike of the axe honed on the anvil
They’re prised apart and free 

© Liz Redfern
All rights reserved

Breaking Apart the Union

Dead leaves of years;
through a pinhole of light,
the drama plays on.

Silhouette of a man,
jabbing finger,
wife, face lifted,
head titled away;

door slams,
engine revs.
woman paralysed
with silent child.

'best for all of us,'
he says,

breaking apart the union.

© Valerie Taylor
All rights reserved