i.m. Rosa Luxemburg 

Yours is the ghost in the waters even now. 
When you were tipped into the Landwehr Canal
Europe sank. Too many worlds
that might have glanced their way
into being were not hewn. 
A rifle butt, a shot to the skull,
the squalor and contempt of a few
hired men, that’s all it took. 
History shrank. Peoples and nations 
shrank to the drench of your skirt. 

In some other version,
I can glimpse you keep on walking
beyond this moment,
the rifle is paused,
the trigger-finger hesitates:
Adolf stews obscurely in a gutter,
the sailors of Kronstadt prevail,
Leon goes back to reviewing,
the world tilts with you, Rosa,
this is your revolution worth knowing. 

Neil Young is originally from west Belfast and now lives in north-east Scotland. He is one of the founders of The Poets’ Republic magazine and of Drunk Muse Press. Red is from his latest collection, The Song She Didn’t Sing (Seahorse Publications) contact [email protected].