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Last updated: June 27, 2009
June 2009
An excellent and varied selection of poems this month
November
Over the cliffs of Cromarty
the high fields break and
tumble to the sea
gathering birds are urgent
sweeping over the raw ground
like a swirl of leaves dry
fragments of a summer song
Flocks in Munlochy Bay
rise and settle on the flats
and rise and turn
shoaled silver in the sun's trawl
At the season's cusp
life moves to the margins
huddled, shivering
braced for Winter
Copyright © Kirk Saunders 2009
Beside the Sea
A heavy lap of sea on rock
ditches; shelves puddle
pitching gulls spearing
catch in rain - oblivious
to weather cast -
'It rains in Spain' refrains
from past-clock choking
seconds ticked, pulsating
beats. Heart thumps,
jumping in danger,
joy in seeing every thing:
a stranger,
cigarette hanging
like a kirk candle
waiting to be lit
stumbles
doing his laces up.
He is old, in trainers
and a baseball cap.
He might be a poet
or a heroin addict.
The Big Issue seller
who has dyed his hair,
extends hype
to a passing man
who tries to ignore
his sale's yawn.
'You're alright pal.
I don't care.'
he lightly threatens.
Old people explore streets,
bumble in word-play,
jigsaw where tourists
loudly utter presence,
fronting fond looks
routed to Leith Walk
where faces are long;
fallen stoops drooping,
shopping in green bags,
wretching to get home
for Coronation Street
or Eastenders.
Foreign voices shout
where Edinburgh Castle
behind Princes Street Gardens,
craggily abuts.
A fairway horizons.
Children breeze at Jock's Lodge -
familiarly - straight kids,
street-wise kids.
At home.
A heavy lap of sea
on rock
crashes.
Copyright © Christine Ford 2009
Yoga in Edinburgh
You hold your arms out to
feed your body.
I hold my arms out to feed
my soul.
I, within my safe warm blanket.
Shiny wood floor.
Lovely lycra.
The rain on the window,
we chant inside.
You, in your cold mould filled
rags.
The rain inside.
I reach out for my fix
in my warm yoga nest.
beautiful girls.
beautiful bodies.
seeking beauty for our minds.
After class.
I walk through the wet streets
filled with peace and warmth and love.
You shiver, in the wet.
filled with emptiness.
You huddled, reach out to me,
I ignore you,
wrapping my pink coat around.
The rain falls.
you reach out for your next fix.
I close my eyes and shiver.
Copyright © Sarah MacKay 2009
Lady Mist
She comes with the 8 o’clock boat.
All laced in her whitest of dress,
she throws her suitcase on the quay,
like a diva in a known town,
she, paperless poetess,
senses the wariness of those
who never listen to seagulls…
She kens the name of every lane,
pub & footprints left on flagstones,
the twang of sailors in their tongues –
gansie forgotten on a deck.
Undeterred by the wind’s rumours,
she frees her hair of icy scarf,
and spreads new myths
around the wharf.
She glides through the town in silence
without asking for direction;
she fills each bay with so much ease,
no fisherman will dare to curse…
I wait for her at my window.
She, the diva, I, the poet,
no island lives without lighthouse –
serenity found in her grace,
I’ll ask the blackbird for a song
and will gather her every pearl,
tokens of love on each flower,
as signature of her passage,
as sensual as late morning dew.
Copyright © Nat Hall2009
Images of France
Shaded by the plane trees
the morning market ends.
Old women in dark clothes
and wrap around aprons
jam live rabbits, ducks, hens
and angry geese into small cages.
Pot bellied men with comic book mustachios
wrap, stash and stow
cured hams, peppered hams
fat back bacon
and tangle sausages
into customized vans.
Metal striking metal echoes
in the rare Summer air.
Young girls in shorts
and revealing vests
pose by the fountain,
the rainbow mist
unable to cool their ardour
Thirsty shoppers collect for aperitifs
in the fan cooled bars.
Waistcoated waiters
with starched white shirts.
Juggle tips into secret pouches,
and perform their graceful dance
side-stepping children,
shopping bags,
panting dogs,
new customers
and incoherent orders.
Setting tables, serving tables
clearing tables, glasses clinking
corks thunking, knives rattling,
plates drumming a rhythm
on the table with the shaky leg.
Copyright © J M Brown 2009
For my Father
I wonder what to tell about my father.
A quiet man with not very much to say.
He's best remembered sitting on his chair
Inhaling Woodbine, watching the smoke in play.
In worldly terms he didn't excel in life
Held back by crippling skin disease, he ailed.
Yet outward calm concealed the inner strife.
He never spoke about what that entailed.
The years passed by, his influence on me
Without my knowing is greater than I knew.
If only I had thought to say as he
Upon his bed our hands entwined askew,
If only I had found the words to say
Before his grip relaxed and he slipped away.
Copyright © Ed Murray 2009
May 2009
DERBY DAY
On my way back from the shops,
I was stopped by this cop on a horse.
“This is a cordon. No one gets through”
So I stood with the others and watched.
A sick looking bloke swayed out of the pub.
A slick and sticky stain on his shirt.
Then a shape on a stretcher.
No face visible.
But from under the blanket,
pristine white trainers jutted
out over the edge.
Everyone stood silent.
Even the horse was still.
Police moved back at the siren sound,
The ambulance men loaded their cargo.
And slowly the crowd began to trickle home.
Hearing my key in the door,
Mum shouted from the kitchen,
‘You were a long time.
Did you remember the onions?’
Copyright © Kit Hale 2009
THE HALF SHELL
Thumb’s cup
newly housed
in my pocket,
a chip of shell
cream ridged
and white,
the half hinge
of once closing.
What was there
protected and hushed
in the dark,
a tearful pool
nursing umbilical flesh,
a membrane,
half knowing.
I have arrested the rush
of the tides for you,
my trinket
my token
my charm,
a cradle
a bridge now
over the flesh
of my thumb.
A shell on the shore,
waves on the beach
turning half shell
turned by the shattering sea,
now I must give you,
not take, but give you carefully
back to the restless waves,
to wash and grind and wear you free.
Copyright © Joanne Davidson 2009
spinning
It’s a fact that I love her. It’s a fact that blue suede shoes expand
to a size bigger than your feet need. It’s a fact that if you care
you will be hurt sometimes. and you will hurt.
sizes bigger than you need. perspective. all these war zones every
where and all I want is love. indecision. new shoes old shoes, new
music old books new books.
think how you are before. selfish as I am I love. I love you. I am
scared. no point in being scared, I am
the forty thieves.
and the child cries love. and the man cries love. and the woman cries
love. spinning crying tender laughing.....................spinning
crying tender laughing.................still rivers
Copyright © Graham Brodie 2009
La Fornarina
I would love you with the sea on one side,
a sun stretched out to the far horizon:
the waves as one motion, united in feeling.
I would love you between mountain and valley
and down every declining slope,
as faithful as the light at five o'clock.
I would love you in the tree-lined distance-
green as the pine-scent on the pathways,
with the wind's suddenness between branches.
I would love you in the city centre,
between the lights at every crossing, traffic's reckless rush,
among the pavement's grey and stubborn dreams.
And I would love you face to face,
across the distance our words impose, our looks and hours,
and after the asking if that'll be all.
Copyright © Michael Lee Rattigan 2009
Dragon Slaying
I've got this friend
and he's been chasing a dragon
for a quite a while
now
He says the dragon's fire
is lovely and warm
and if my friend pays for his company
he always has time to chat
But this dragon is really hard to find
and he doesn't stay for very long
and when he leaves
everything gets cold
And trying to find him again
is even harder the next time
And my friend has to hunt for him
Down the darkest tracks of human existence
And the price of the dragon's company
is going through the roof
My friend has to steal sometimes
just to pay for his time
He doesn't care where he goes
to find him
Because he says the dragon
is the only one who understands him
So my friend roams the streets
From China town to English Street
Down Alleyways and Tracklines
Looking for his friend
While I stay at home
conspiring with everyone he knows
to slay the dragon,
so he can never come back.
Copyright © Katie Graham 2009
Lie down in the park
Lie down in the park
so that your hair
play with grass
an' with your hand
shield your eyes
from the sun;
then turn around
a little for ease,
sinking in the green,
your shirt slipping
on your waist, an'
through your fingers
sunshine tripping in.
Copyright © Akhil Katyal 2009
Count Your Blessings
Thin sleep slid my grip so I counted my blessings,
How the bucketing God-givens offset the lessings.
I'd have knelt to give thanks but I've no got the knees
What wi jumping for joy like a puddock wi fleas.
In the treacling darkness I lay there and purred.
Mid my gloatings a crabbit-like niggle occurred -
You would think that a Lord wha in brilliance doth bide
Could a sliver of moonlicht to count by provide!
But the boons I was hoatching wi more than consoled.
Gainst the holes in my semmit my glories I told,
All the bliss since my gub from the titty was torn.
I was fearful I'd no get the totals by morn.
Sure, green-eyed the angels sulked jealous of me
As I reckoned my outbreaks of high-spunking glee.
I so reddened my thrapple wi singing hosanna
I was ganking for nectar to wash down my manna.
But close in to hand there was precious to sup
Save ceiling-crack dribblands amassed in a cup.
Though on palace and hovel the honeydew falls
A king cannae slaik thirst by licking his walls!
Syne, I savoured the luckies that fate had largessed -
I like a thin bedsock, it lets you attest
The soft breeze from the sash where the putty was thieved
And the neebor's wee dug proved I hadnae been deived.
I was benisoned so in my starfallen state
My vitals I checked lest I'd tumbled to fate.
An abcess confirms you've got teeth in your heid
And I've no heard of scabies afflicting the deid!
As my cock-a-hoop hours ran beasting away
With the passing of night I was ravished by day.
My cold sore split raw from the width of my grin
As mirth bared my gums at the dawn chorus din.
But the forenoon was dreich so my blessings I counted
How the totting of perks versus pitfalls amounted
To trumpet my fortune the angels were coy -
It was left to the budgie to cheep, "Lucky boy!"
Copyright © Robin Cairns 2009
March 2009
FORBEARS
I don’t think any of my forbears ever
chaired a board, won a decoration,
was ever really magisterial,
but in the twentieth century, early on,
along the coast where Scotland faces
out to Ireland’s green, my grandfather
plied the sea trade of his steamer.
“Puffers” they called them, modest craft,
and he, photographed, gazed out from
sober whiskers and a tidy deck,
neat coils of rope, a stolid crew.
Retired, he farmed his Hebridean croft,
stayed sure on his ambition’s shuttled line
from croft to mainland stock sales,
bought beasts, trained sheepdogs, whistled,
fed cake to cows, churned salty butter,
worked days and years.
The Reverend
Evan Davies (mother’s side), he kept
a faith I’m sure he keenly felt. Amongst
the lichened stones of a Pembrokeshire hamlet,
he preached (earnestly, we are told, and in Welsh),
was poet and musician. He too was photographed,
he deeply whiskered too, solemn
in his scrutiny. He was described
by his people as a true Israelite
Hardly a compliment you’d get today,
any more than you’d expect to find
poets, crofters, captains of little craft, out there,
shuffling their way, spreading their word.
Copyright © Robert Nisbet 2009
A Study of Realism
I had this dream once
Where I was hurtling through Space
Dragging Every Imaginary You
By the hand, one by one, grasping
All of them like zombies, with
Blue-green faces waxed over
Eyes lacking a soul even
In this warped cell of reality
Through the semi-permeable
Membrane of sleep...
Melting away from me
Copyright © Nadia Tariq 2009
Parting and Meeting
Yesterday.
When we parted at the metro,
I saw your figure cruelly blow out,
and me, melting wax in my clothes,
saved the last glimpse of you,
gripped on it for the last fraction of a second seized
on and lingered on and then,
time expired with a long birch cry,
turning me over.
It killed me go down to earth like Orpheus,
bullied, down the stairs,
and see you no more.
Today.
As beautiful as the day we met,
the skylight hurts my chest,
haunts me - I breath heavily,
for I see you coming smiling
with an aureole and a foulard.
The open sky is on our back
escalating to its roof, the Heaven.
Birds soar and hang in the airy
gardens above in this spacious home,
dangling among old and new
psychotropic flowers.
I see you coming and I’m waiting
contented, for only seconds separate us
now – I’m here
like a living star pulsing,
like a flower in the lawn
of the house of the sky.
This is how I am happy
You’re here, we kiss.
A smudge on the sky is far away.
The soft ball of sun and of zephyr
I give it to you, you give it to me
I’ll clutch my fist, I’ll keep it,
We come we go, parting and meeting
I’ll guard the spell of love,
I’ll keep it.
Copyright © Zoe Karathanasi, 2008
(Paris, France)
23/02/2009
THAT FAMOUS RIGHT CROSS.
My Uncle
brought back to me,
from America
a pair of Levis Jeans
with a big black buckled belt.
And a tee-shirt top
the sort that Elvis wore
In Jail House Rock.
Day and night
I lived in those pants
as I slouched
into hostile teenage angst.
My mother,
a placid, loving woman
proclaimed to me
a fifteen year old James Dean tough.
That enough was enough,
I was going over the score.
She’d take no more .
I laughed at her
And greased back my hair.
‘I swear.’ She proclaimed
I’ll wipe that smirk off your face.
I twisted out of reach.
But she cornered me.
And crouching like a boxer
let loose a fierce left hand,
I was slow to understand.
As I went to block it,
she unleashed a lethal right,
catching my exposed ribs.
My Father,
sipping a Sunday beer
winked and said.
‘You should have learned by now son
when she rolls up that old right sleeve
It’s time for us all to leave.
Copyright © J M Brown 2009
Copyright © Andy Thornton 2009
28/02/09
Earl of Mar’s House
Black rugged frontage bubbles out of
The graveyard manacled to the hillside
From times gone; an insane angel built
It here to house black deeds, perhaps,
Or a cradle for a prince, his mother mad
Out flying with demon lords, his father
Moon-white and lying in state in the night
Garden. But today the mountain is
Littered with plastic bulging with
Semen, dark words
Scrawled across walls and phone
Numbers offering service in this lord’s
House where a telephone would have
Seemed a witch’s device, unthinkable.
Now it’s the past that looks out-of-
Time as the manor house gasps and crumbles,
Shifting in and out of the chalky hillside
As people beetle about it, fucking over gravestones
Where once there were kings.
Copyright © Andrew F Giles 2009
Andrew lives in Stirling
Learning
What I learned today,
on holiday from teaching,
is that gonads
are the same as
female ovaries
and Simenon's
'Monsieur Monde Vanishes'
is a stereotype reinforced
rather than undermined.
How interesting.
Radio 4 lives
as I wash shelves down
and nets cook in the tumble-drier.
What I learned today, after an every-day
morning swim, was buzzards glide
together, wings rhythmed-fringes
and I got the Lammermoors,
shut in snow, looking like boulders,
playing at stepping on
and jumping off
from air-plummeting stairs.
A man walks with a dog,
both camouflaged,
ribbon stripe missing
and they are gone;
just on a walk
up the Garelton road.
What I tried to learn today
was stilling the mind
in frost on the green bits
and stip-stepping gracefully
in sympathy for a contemporary
suffering: bush fires in Australia
where relatives live, and Iraq, Afghanistan
sober the head. Today as a pupil of subtlety
I learn to listen. Whistles blow in the garden
as all-sorts tumble: Coal-tits, Blue-tits,
hedge-sparrows, blackbirds,
dunnocks and starlings lummer
seeds and nuts.
A thrush appeared on the shed rooftop.
Today I learned to stop.
Today I learned to think.
Today I learned to almost love.
Copyright © Christine Ford 2009
MOUNTAIN TOP
Before it I was telling you about
the breath of wind preparing the change
while we were leaving behind
the last chestnut trees and oaks,
-no more shade, you said, now just sun and heat-
spreading a feeling around
as if we had just sailed beyond Hercules' pillars.
Just sun and heat, and sparse tufts of grass. And stones.
But after a further bend a small fountain appeared
out of a little hole, with a ladle hanging on a hook,
we drank with it and you poured
water on your head, a spontaneous Baptism.
And we stood contemplating the marvellous trickle
coming out of a tap that seemed
carved out of a rock sinew.
So we could continue.
On the top, before leaving the view
of the plain behind, gusts of wind
almost drove us forward,
another landscape was opening:
thick fir-trees as far as our eyes could see
and while the sweat from the rise
was cooling on our back
we stepped on into the future.
Copyright © Davide Trame, 2009
Davide lives in Venice, Italy
FAREWELL
pa was six days gone
in a coffin of pale wood
clad in a white shroud
with pale blue ribbons
the hands bleached and drawn
but the form of them still beautiful
the line retained
the nail of each thumb fan-shaped
with a wondrous half-moon
the eagle nose
with its network of veins
now translucent
the moustache - stubble
cheeks pumice-stoned
with a trace of fluff
the mouth without its teeth
nestled in caved-in cheeks
above a reddish forehead
the hair almost tousled
with two red patches at the eye and mouth
from the final falls
a calm face
much too old
unknowable
unmade
Copyright © John Irons 2008
John, who had a Scottish father, lives in Denmark. He is an active poet and translator.
LAST MAN STANDING
In my younger days,
I still have the pictures to prove it.
That's me standing among my mates,
with a pistol in my hand
as merry a band of warriors
as could be found marauding around Europe.
It was of course an official war.
But still
It was a strange day
When the ones I had fought beside
didn’t wake, demanding tea.
But lay with hands
Strangely cupped
beneath their chins
dead as dead can be.
Untroubled now by wind and snow
in a desolate land.
There was nowhere left to go,
They’d made their final stand.
Copyright © J.M.Brown 2008
Life
Two doves, lovebirds, hunker in the tree;
feathers flounce like a duvet shared
in a shattered sleep
and sparrows and blue-tits,
the neat dunnock and robin, flitter
amongst a seed-table and
nut-house to gather a meal
of sorts between flies,
always about when it's wet
and I saw my first worm today on the doorstep
and I hated the fleshy thing creepily leeching alongways,
wriggling bits of mourning and a girl
whose mother died yesterday
sat in my class as if nothing had happened
so I'm turned inside out of being normal
to say anything about it or keeping quiet.
I lair her with empathy as my heart bleaches
like a lemon squeezed to curd,
belted upside down with weariness.
I stop thinking about my road or anyone else's.
Copyright © Christine Ford 2008
REFLECTION
There’s an unforgiving mirror
on my well lit bathroom door,
it catches every blotch and spot
that wasn’t there before.
A helicopter landing pad’s
appearing on my head.
It’s enough to make a more vain man
go slinking back to bed.
It highlights sudden flushes
and colour codes the ears,
with eyes of liver yellow
showing one too many beers.
Broken veins
and broken dreams
an atlas of the road,
a nose that’s getting spongier
and spreading far too broad.
Where once I may have preened all day
I dim the searching arc
my face criss -crossed with plasters
from shaving in the dark.
Copyright © J.M.Brown, 2008
Fleur fatale
The red flower, the far-reaching archer
Will eventually be fetched,
Her dress will slide on her roots..
Or she may end up uprooted somewhere,
to host a woman's vanity
to bestow on her some coloured rings
help drink her suitor's blood;
a mosquito!
fugacious survivor in a hibernal land.
Copyright © Zoe Karathanasi, 2008
(Paris, France)
Wet Behind The Knees.
Ah put ma haun up
But she didnae see me
Ah wiggled aboot on ma seat
An' she still didnae see me.
It wisnae 'til it wis aw roon ma feet,
That's when she saw me.
When it'd soaked through ma knickers
An' run doon the chair
An' aw the other weans
Hud started to stare.
Cause she pointed her finger
Right oot in the air,
An' she got aff her ain chorus
An' came oot on the flair
(chorus and verse,
erse, that is
for those of you
who wish to care ).
An' she pointed oot ma name
In capitals tae,
An' a thought, aw naw
Is this a good time tae pray.
Can you not speak?
By then ah couldnae.
Aw the other weans
Were laughin' at me
An' ah wished they wouldnae.
You should have gone at break
Aye ah know, but ah didnae.
Ma feet were in a puddle
Ma wee heid in a muddle.
Ah tried tae staun up
But ah wis wet doon fae the middle.
Ah looked aroon'
Fur a way tae escape,
Ma cheeks were turning
As red as ma face….
But ah called her a cow
As ah ran away,
An' ah knew ah shouldnae.
Copyright © Mandy Maxwell 2008
Aberdeen
It’s damp and grey on the River Spey
And it’s cold and dark there too
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And the sky’s an azure blue
How cold it feels in Galashiels
And it’s blowing quite a hoolie
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
No need to wear a woolly!
The fog hangs thick in the town of Wick
And there’s drizzle in Kirkcaldy
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
Where you can tan your body
It’s peeing down in Lennoxtown
And it’s pouring in Dundee
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
It’s the hottest place to be
The waves are tossin’ in Ardrossan
And in the Firth of Tay
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And it’s a very lovely day
There’s a layer of mist in South Uist
It’s below par in Stranraer
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And it’s melting all the tar
It’s a trifle dull on the Isle of Mull
And it’s gloomy up on Skye
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And nobody knows why
There’s wind and sleet on Prince’s Street
And in Stirling it’s cyclonic
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And they’re mixing a gin and tonic
There are winter storms in the high Cairngorms
And it’s frostie in Carnoustie
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And it’s just as warm as toastie
It’s brass monkeys around Dumfries
Snow’s falling in Falkirk
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And they’ve taken the day off work
The sun don’t shine in Kincardine
Much less in Inverness
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
The weather’s poor in Stenhousemuir
And up on Arthur’s Seat
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And they’re walking in bare feet
Few sunny spells on the Campsie Fells
Far, far fewer in Forfar
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
So schön, so wunderbar!
It’s extremely cool in Ullapool
And it’s cloudy in Glenrothes
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And they’re taking off their cloth-es
They’ve got cold hands in Prestonpans
And in the Shetland Isles
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And all you can see is smiles
There’s a belt of rain across Dunblane
And an air of trepidation
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And there’s no precipitation
There’s no sign of sun in Livingston
And it’s Spartan in Dumbarton
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And the celebration’s startin’
The floods are deep in Cowdenbeath
Though shallower in Alloa
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
With a warm Hawaiian halloa
There’s a small typhoon blowing through Dunoon
There’s a dearth of mirth in Perth
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And you can see it on Google Earth
There’s some concern, today in Nairn
There’s a hard gale in Ardgay
But it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
That is all I have to say
Yes, it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
And they’re bursting into song
Aye, it’s seventeen in Aberdeen
(But it will nay be for long!)
Copyright © Rob Barratt 2008
Rob now lives in Cornwall.
Rain in the City: a haiku sequence
town centre downpour
lights splash patterns over streets
tricolore puddles
scarlet wings open
black polka dots on body
ladybird brolly
rain drops catch
sodium lamps
liquid gold
temperate monsoon
rain beads stud bare branches and
nosedive to the ground
dew drops glistening
pearls threaded on fine silk skeins
spider’s web necklace
Copyright © Angela Blacklock-Brown 2008
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