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  • The Curtain
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The Curtain

George Bruce

Half way up the stairs
Is the tall curtain.
We noticed it there
After the unfinished tale.

My father came home,
His clothes sea-wet,
His breath cold.
He said a boat had gone.

He held a lantern.
The mist moved in,
Rested on the stone step
And hung above the floor.

I remembered
The blue glint
Of the herring scales
Fixed in the mat,

And also a foolish crab
That held his own pincers fast.
We called him
Old Iron-clad.

I smelt again
The kippers cooked in oak ash.
That helped me to forget
The tall curtain.


George Bruce

Today Tomorrow: The Collected Poems of George Bruce 1933-2000, edited by Lucina Prestige (Polygon, 2001)

Tags:

fathers fish gothic mystery
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George Bruce1909 - 2002

A ground-breaking radio and television arts producer, George Bruce was a poet whose spare poems, wrought with precision, echoed the landscape and character of his native north Aberdeenshire.
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