Gleneagles Sequence
Aftermath, Prelude to Gleneagles
The Royal Mile, Edinburgh
5 July 05
café called "Chocolate Soup"
All is calm today
after what tabloids call "The Battle of Princes Street"
policemen friendly, if wary,
riot trucks just out of sight
shops and museums reopen
a few still sporting boards or cork over plate glass
No beheadings today
People's Carnival
Clown army
Coming through the rye
beyond the barbed wire
at Gleneagles
Chinook helicopters and a phalanx of riot police
can't stop
the marching band on the hillside
nor the conga line of clowns
as stilt puppets do a danse macabre
silhouetted against the horizon
Coincidence
Met a family on the march to Gleneagles today,
just after arriving,
Only last evening I'd sat with them and chatted
during "Literary Pub Tour" in Edinburgh
Father, mother, 22-yr old daughter
from English Midlands
Told me how they'd been going to anti-nuclear and antiwar and anti-capitalist
demos together since the girl was in diapers (red, presumably)--
Firm testimony that the family that demonstrates together...
So very British, perfect in their ordinariness,
Right out of a BBC comedy skit, yet ever so thoughtful and gentle
When the march stalls, due to trouble at the gates,
the family decide to step to a side lane,
take their miniature camp stove from out the rucksack,
and make tea
Thus is peace restored!
Missing the Bus
Scottish Socialist Party bus commissars
took off without me
"The Revolution stops fer no mon"
Though I'd borrowed cellphone to tell them I was on the other side of the village
after walking the length on a bad tip as to where the police had sent them
In fairness, another SSP steward tried valiantly to get rides for us sixty or so,
Stragglers sitting by the park, swatting midges as the sun went low
and police cars lurked like cats
Finally had to join the refugees hoofing the miles to Gleneagles Station,
But caught a lift and made it back to Edinburgh by last call
and the chance to toast the Coming Revolution!
After Gleneagles
Nothing like exhilaration
of hiking the road
on yr last legs--
But those purple hills!
Note: On 6 July, 2005, under the banner, "Another World Is Possible," a coalition of peace and anti-globalization groups conducted a peaceful march near the Gleneagles golf resort, where George Bush, Tony Blair, and the rest of the G8 world leaders were meeting. About 4,000 marchers managed to make it to the gates of Gleneagles, despite a cordon of police roadblocks on the roads leading in. The march followed a weekend of "End Hunger Now" concerts in London and Edinburgh, and occurred one day before the London bombings.