Eco Cheil, a Vigilante
i
I saw this fat man.
Haw Fatman I says,
How've ye got 3 caurs
On yir lock-block,
A big yin, a wee yin an' a medium sized.
The big yin's for the faimly,
The wee yin goes the shoppin.
An' yir medium sized,
pearl metallicked
Turbo fuckn dieseled?
The laddie drives, but mainly
It's for back-up.
Back-up? Aye back-up.
An' is your wife as fat as you?
What is this? he says,
Jiss 'cos I've three caurs on my lock-block.
I held him wi my left, hit him wi my right
Beat his gums in, paidled in his paunch,
Put a fence stab through his windscreens,
The haill three o them.
That'll teach you sumph I says, to hae
3 caurs on yir lock-block.
ii
White vanman sittn by himsel,
Earmuffs oan, pokn at his cell.
Haw I says, leave oaff yir dumbn,
Injin idlin, petrol hummn,
Porn is it, a sportn pundit?
No that I'm bothert whit ye hit
Jiss dinna leave yir injin runnin.
No a cheep, he kept on pokn,
In atween his gab wiz graftn,
Heckn oan some food-to-go
Fruit flavourt watter, Irn Bru.
Tied my bike up, chappt at him,
Whit's a this individualism?
Dain yir ain pervertit thing
To yir ain wee world, wired in,
Oan Lidl's saunies stappit fou
Belchn pounds o CO2,
Sittn surfn, injin runnin.
He gave me lip, one fingert me,
'Get oan yir mountn bike', he shouts,
'This piece on brie de meaux I'm eatn
It's brill we stills o tits n bum'.
Green mist cam doun, near blindit me,
His Sennheisers, I yerkit free;
'Earth solidarity's in trouble,
Escape yir mediatit bubble.....'
I skelpt his jaw for browsn tat
A solipsist he wiz, the clart,
Sittn surfn, injin runnin.
iii
Nix doar's put in a plastic lawn
He says to practise puttn on,
Nylon fibred, quirky holes
Headn owre some tricky knolls,
White flagged at every bend
Nine par twos run end to end.
Zebra striped the spikes he's shopped
Lime green breeks, a scarlet top,
Says his Taylormade's baroque
A classic L-neck superstroke,
The scores o ba's it's chappn
Jiss wan in ten are drappn.
He's made the mavis outcast
There's no a single wormcast,
An murdert a that's mortal
For wantn to live normal,
A' the microbes, slugs and grubs,
Unnerneath his sods n shrubs.
'My grass is Green,' he bums
'No fertilizer hums,
Electric mowers' clatter
Or sprinklers wastn watter,
This plastic's eco sent
For helpn the environment'.
I nabbed the Taylormade
At tug o war we played,
'Haw! Creish multi-colourt yob
Hark to the lifeworld's throb',
As wi yon blade fantastic
I split his ersatz plastic.
iv
Right close, the pick-up passed
It gey near blew me owre,
Super duty mega-cab
Bulkt-up wi barrelt side;
Five ton I'm lookn at
In tyres like Batmobile's,
'Stan the Man,' oan 4D plates
Tinct cockpit glintin doun.
The wee wummn, jiss a skelf,
Jumped oaff the fuselage,
A swank, in Jimmy Choos,
Ray-Bans on laquert heid;
Her V-neck sleeveless Klein
Set off sexed-up tattoos,
Bejewellt she wiz, lang nailt,
Blue murder, in black slits o een,
'Haw you', she shouts real gleg
'Keep in yir cycle lane,
Get owre the bed a bit
Stoap wobbln oan the line;
You've cut me up ye creip
I'll blood an snotter ye,
Yah bass! I'd hiv ye stabbed
If Stan my Man wiz here'.
Lassoo'd the aerial
And sclimmt back up again,
Green skinny jeans swung in
A gaitit doar clanged shut;
As wi a T-Rex roar
Her diesel kennlt up,
Left me to think, 'I'm gled
The Man cried Stan's no here'.
About this poem
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2023. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, which includes 5 poems written in Scots, chosen by a different editor each year with comments by the editor and poets. It provides a personal overview of a year of Scottish poetry. The editor for poetry in Scots in 2023 was Liz Niven.
Editor’s Comments
This monologue taks aim at a hail range o fowk. The Eco-unfrienly, designer-wearers, astrotrufers, petrol polluters an even manages tae tak a poke at a porn watchin food-tae-go white vanman. Aw delivert in a Scots vyce wi attitude an a punch tae match. Howanevver, his fear o Stan lets him doon in the enn. It micht hae been interestin tae see hou he’d hiv coped wi Stan. Though fillt wi humourous images, the poet manages tae reference monie o oor societie’s eco problems. The mix o brand names an contemporary Scots is jist delichtfu – thou the narrator’s in-yer-face approach fulfils a classic monologue aim o depictin a character ye micht no particularly want tae meet.
Author’s Comments
Eco Cheil, a vigilante is a sequence of four comic poems which originated in Alastair’s personal observation. In ‘lock block’, ‘the solipsist’ and ‘green grass’ for example, we see behaviour that violates the environment; that of a multiple car owner, of a driver who lets his car engine idle while on his mobile, and of a man who installs a plastic lawn. Eco Cheil assaults all of them on behalf of the environment. Is the violence justified? In his defence, it might be said that violence inflicted upon nature by individual, human selfishness is far worse. Moreover, he is himself threatened with a stabbing in the fourth poem, entitled ‘the wee wummn’. There are now fourteen poems in the Eco Cheil sequence. Alastair hopes to write at least twenty of them.
