Militant Thistles
polemical poetry to prickle the politics of "permanent austerity"
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Jim Aitken
Am Bradan Allaidh
(The Wild Salmon)
Riverrun, not Anna Livia
but a highland torrent of whisky
golden brown from bracken, heather, peat
off to the ocean distillery
where all things merge in the global sea
all’s the same though the moods may differ
uniformity blended by salt
no more fresh water, dancing river
following the flow and the current
going the way all things are going
the triumph of mediocrity
the victory of late reaction
in the sea of globalisation
we are all so pretty in pink now
farmed salmon in overcrowded tanks
swallowing all the pellets they throw
tamed, memories eradicated
of deep pools, jagged rocks, waterfalls
heroic journeys against the flow
spawning at the very source of things
so get back to where you once belonged
cast off the flabbiness, captive state
and rediscover muscle and flesh
the spirit that once made you alive
observe our own am bradan allaidh
leaping and pounding the Falls of Shin
a silver sword shining through the spray
disdainful of any obstacle
Jim Aitken is a former English teacher who now tutors in Scottish Cultural Studies in Edinburgh. He is a poet and a dramatist as well as being a member of the Radical Independence Campaign. Aitken has written poetry pamphlets for Palestine Solidarity and for Stop The War. He also edited a poetry pamphlet by fellow teachers called Magistri Pro Pace. In 2012 the Scottish Federation of Socialist Teachers published the journal of his last year as an English teacher and EIS activist called The Last Calendar of Events. In 2013 he brought out a DVD of his poems called Our Foolish Ways, produced by First Reel Target. In 2014 his play Letters from Area C was produced by SpartaKi Theatre in Leith and earlier this year his play Leaving George, a play about Scotland’s Referendum, was produced again by SpartaKi for the Leith Festival. He has also had poems published in A Rose Loupt Oot (Smokestack, 2011) celebrating the UCS Work-in, edited by David Betteridge and in Scotia Nova, Poems for the early days of a better nation, edited by Tessa Ransford and Alistair Findlay 2014.
watch it glide like a hawk through water
informed by an instinct we once knew
that said such sacrifice was worth it
constant glorification a sham
no mere consumer this gallant fish
as it reaches the shallow waters
reclaiming an ancient heritage
that guarantees continuation
no goldfish in a murky, glass bowl
no inert, bored version all tanked up
a truly free individual
truly a revolutionary
and truly one we should emulate
ignoring the water’s empty rage
the foolish flow to fathomless grief
for the silent solace of belief.