a book of tears - by
Artist’s book
Mood: Grief & Sorrow
Jock, to the First Army - by
O Rab an’ Dave an’ rantin’ Jim,
The geans were turnin’ reid
When Scotland saw yer line grow dim,
Wi’ the pipers at its heid…
Glasgow Sonnet i - by
A mean wind wanders through the backcourt trash.
Hackles on puddles rise, old mattresses
puff briefly and subside…
When Day Is Done - by
Sorrow remembers us when day is done.
/ It sits in its old chair gently rocking
/ and singing tenderly in the evening.
/ It welcomes…
When Will the War Be By? - by
“This year, neist year, sometime, never,”
/ A lanely lass, bringing hame the kye,
/ Pu’s at a…
In Memoriam - by
Private D. Sutherland
/ killed in action in the German trench, May 16, 1916,
/ and the others who died
/
/ So you were David’s…
Psalm Eighty-Eight Blues - by
Lord, when I’m speechless
/ when something – not just sorrow
/ but under that – a dull, numb, nameless dreich
/ about the heart I…
Things - by
There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.
/ There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,
/ committed or endured or…
The Guest House - by
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Visiting Hour - by
The hospital smell
/ combs my nostrils
/ as they go bobbing along
/ green and yellow corridors.
/
/ What seems a corpse
/ is trundled into a lift and…
Favourite Place - by
We would be snaking up Loch Lomond, the
/ road narrow and winding after the turn at Tarbert,
/ and we’d be bending branches…
At My Father’s Funeral - by
Didn’t we think, for a moment,
of crushing his feet
so he couldn’t return to the house
at Halloween?