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Gasometer

Edwin Morgan

You don’t care about the wildness of the sky,
my old gasometer! The kitchen window
frames your gaunt frame, the black cross-struts
stand firm, stand out, unyielding to the passion
of reds and purples in the dying day.
I have seen your stark ring taking sunlight
till you were something molten, vanishing,
magical – and when the moment passed
you were strong and dark as your dead hammermen.
(They whistle in the long-gone sheds. Listen!)
You cannot hide where your strength comes from.
You are constructivist to the core.
Did you want gargoyles to crouch in your angles?
I don’t think so. Yours is the art of use.
You could be painted, floodlit, archeologized,
but I prefer the unremitting stance
of what you were in what you are, no more.
You are an iron guard or talisman,
and I hear that those who talk of eyesores
you have consigned, bless you, to the bad place.

Day of tearing down, day of recycling,
wait a while! Let the wind whistle
through those defenceless arms and the moon bend
a modicum of its glamorous light upon
you, my familiar, my stranded hulk – a while!


Edwin Morgan

from Cathures: new poems 1997-2001 (Carcanet/Mariscat, 2002)

Reproduced by kind permission of Carcanet Press.

Tags:

architecture engineering gasometers Glasgow industry Placebook Scotland
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Edwin Morgan1920 - 2010

Morgan was Glasgow's first Poet Laureate 1999-2002, and the first to hold the post of Scots Makar, created by the Scottish Executive in 2004 to recognise the achievement of Scottish poets throughout the centuries.
More about Edwin Morgan

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