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The 45%

by Jojovits1 

Posted: 08 October 2016
Word Count: 83
Summary: Indy ref was a complete awakening for me, politically. I became galvanised by what I believed was right for my family and friends in Scotland. Some family and friends did not have the same view so it was a bit tricky but there you go. I remember getting up at 3.30 to watch the votes come in and getting a hug from my husband before I left for work (crying) at 5, even though he did not agree with me. It was said that it was a once in a lifetime vote. I don't think it will be.
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Transfixed by numbers.
Percentages tease,
shift like the
rise and fall
of dying nobility.
 
A shattered union
holding on to hope
conciliation.
A civil war of
almost right against
nearly right

By 4 am the dream
has bled reality
into the working day.
The answer is no.
 
No to freedom
No to socialism
No to independence.

Who would say no to that?
 
My boss emails me
a picture of
the Union Jack.
I laugh at the joke
as I hang my head.






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Comments by other Members



Cliff Hanger at 21:48 on 08 October 2016  Report this post
Hi Jo

If there's another vote it'll be a landslide 'yes'. 

The only suggestion I'd make is to replace

shattered

unless you don't mean as in broken glass but in worn out which I would suggest as a replacement or worn down something like that. I think even the people who voted no felt weariness with the union so that's more inclusive. Something like

A worn out union 
holding by a thread to hope 
conciliation
 


I love the last part of that stanza.

We're living in strange times.

Jane
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Cliff Hanger at 21:53 on 08 October 2016  Report this post
Sorry Jo

I thought this was in the poetry writers group not for flash. It makes sense just as it is as a replay of your experience of the vote and your feelings. It fits the prompt really well. 

J
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FelixBenson at 01:49 on 09 October 2016  Report this post
Indyref was such a massive thing. Such an emotional time, and it still reverberates. It's hard to write about these things, but I think this poem works very well as it's so personal. It gives access to the subject in a way that more general polemic wouldn't....And yet there is universal sentiment - I can certainly identify with this:

By 4 am the dream
has bled reality
into the working day.


The morning after it felt like everyone was gutted. One of my friends (a No voter) said she'd felt like she'd lost too, there was nothing to celebrate - it's hard to celebrate retaining the status quo. The atmosphere was so desperately deflated - it was like there had been a death! I think your lines capture that.

It must have been hard to watch from far away, surrounded by people of the opposite view.

Some great lines, and the strength of your feeling really comes across.



 
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V`yonne at 09:17 on 09 October 2016  Report this post
Everything is in flux these days and I think the future has no shape to be just now but these lines sit well to illustrate that


By 4 am the dream
has bled reality
into the working day.

And politically these days feel like endings and not beginnings and your poem paints the pessimism I think we are all feeling about everything now, so well in that final line.
Read the WriteWords interview with Oonah Joslin (V`yonne)
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