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Maggie, Steve and the Poll Tax Riot
Paul Hawkins
Do you remember the time in Trafalgar Square? A scaffold pole flung through the police car windscreen, the helmetless copper punching a pensioner and Steve screaming fuuucking caaant at the copper, who was about eighteen years old, bug-eyed in blue. Steve and me and
bloody everyone jamming crowd barriers under the wheels of that riot van that drove into us; the chanting, the van trying to reverse out, the chanting and shouting and the van getting stuck; the chanting and shouting and smashing as we rocked the van over. Then the tsunami
crowd-surge, Steve tripping, falling into the road; the police horses charging, Steve crushed under hooves; the screams; human, horse, ambulance. At eleven that evening I watched Steve in a hospital bed, breath courtesy of a machine; tubes, lines-in and all I could hear was
MAGGIE MAGGIE MAGGIE
OUT
OUT
OUT
Paul Hawkins is a poet, writer, performer and an associate artist of arts charity Vita Nova. His pamphlet collection Claremont Road was published by Erbacce Press to critical acclaim in 2013 and a new collection, Contumacy (Erbacce Press) will be published in 2014.
Well Versed is edited by Jody Porter.
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