Being a lover of poetry I thought today I would post a poem from our Spirit of Revolt Archive. This is taken from the Alan Burnett Collection, a Glasgow anarchist who as a young man spent time in prison for proclaiming is right to be a conscientious objector. He later settled in New Zealand where he became a long standing member of a writers group. After his death his partner sent us some of his material, which formed the first collection in our archive.
WATER BARRELS
Smugglers
connote
camel trains
from the East
Ponies laden with silk or tea
Muffled hooves down dark lanes
light flashing on remote hilltops
Kegs of brandy
stacked in caves
revenue cutters lurking
in moonlit coves
Frontiers
border guards
diamonds
drugs
gold
illegal immigrants
Gloating sheiks
sinuous harem girls
hedonistic orgies
White slavers
white-collared crime
laundered currency
Corporate raiders
Credit card fraudsters
Flies/fleas/cockroaches
Insider traders
SRA's slow release asprins
sadistic ritual abusers
But comrades
let us smuggle
our emotions
into society
Let us continue
staggering with
our illicit water-barrels of poems
Across the arid desert
of our materialistic community---------------
Alan Burnett.
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