Posters
For The National Library of Scotland
I remember in 1979 the realisation
that the dream would be harder
than this dreamer desired
then came the anger
sitting in Sandy Bell's
Yes posters on the walls
the tantalising sound of freedom
coming through in a song
the boy in me looked back from now & cried
"Why did it take so long?"
In 1979 I was twenty three years old
both old & young
my political life began
much as Henry James once asked in a play
"To whom do you beautifully belong?"
Undone by the forty percent rule
the years rolled down the road
then it was the Falkland’s War
the 1980's were a bleak decade
but meaning & hope
do not flow away inexplicably
forever on the air
they are a miracle of the will
we hung the posters of our desire
from the window sill
of the house of possibility
we hang them there still
Radical Scotland Chapman & Cencrastus
Thatcher could not kill us
or deny the inevitable
we knew in our hearts
that it would not be long
until our slogan became
"Only the gentle are strong"
Trident the Poll Tax the Miners' Strike
in these years complacency would not do
we print the fire in our song
Yes Yes that was what we knew
never take governance at face value
who believes lives
it is easier to see what is coming
than to see what is
our imaginations are posters on the wall
they cannot be pulled down
by laughing history
& they answer when you call
see these leaves of ink?
They are the chronicles
of the struggle & the dream
& will not fall
George Gunn