Garscadden Estate/Drumchapel Scheme

Remember the Estate?
Where you and I played in the sand
y banks of the Garscadden burn
where the wild fields opened unreservedly
and the big house was burned and empty,
its gates girnin for Mary Queen of Sorrow.

Remember –
how we peed our pants
down at our ankles
unaccustomed to squatting in the grass
beside the slab that marked the grave
of a horse much higher prized
than the likes of you and me
sprung out of traps in Maryhill,
scavenging for neeps.

Remember –
lice in your hair
and Carmen Jones
strangling while you strained
over the white bathroom sink,
blood sunk to your feet.

And frogs beside the bath
in the field at ‘Mount Everest’
where the turnip-yellow moon
lanterned the hill
behind the tenement fortress
where we slept warm as pies
with our coats on the bed.

And cows clattered through closes
we were too noisy to play in.