Setting the Time Aside
“the sea is not salt enough”
1
Gently, gently gets
things going, as you
well know, and here’s
the nub: the dust is up
afresh, and won’t come
down till this is done.
Sydney, it’s midnight
or shortly after, and I’m
trying to get you framed
in the shot: fixed plumb
in the cross-hair snap.
You’re sat in a chair
before a desk, leaning
slightly towards me.
Window edge in;
brick wall behind.
You’re puzzled or costive
ticked or cheesed off –
it’s a bit hard to judge.
I’ll have to take care
to get this straight:
not strain too long
nor squeeze a little tight.
Unlock the gate and let
us in. Unslip the leash
and let the beastie go.
Whatever you’ve got
to say to me, you’d
better say it now.
I’m all ears.
Would an upright man
betray his father?
Who broke the jade?
Who let the wild
buffalo down?
Surely to death we can offer
up some kind of an answer.
What are we meant
to be? What are we
meant to do? I’m
serious, now, Sydney,
we’re starting to get through.
2
Five to the hour as
the long hand sweeps
round. What a puzzler
you’ve set out for
everybody. We’ve all
been tongue-tied
waiting for it too.
So where’s the gap
or slap, or intersection,
which thresh-hold have
we set our toes to
transgress tonight?
(Hold on a bit, is
that the children starting
up? I think I hear
them through the wall.)
Sydney, Sydney, what
happened in the Pass of Glencoe?
Aye, to you I mean.
All that “wiry, white-fiery
and whirlwind-swivelled snow”.
What did you mean
and what did it mean
tell me to come back?
3
Kenspeck, kenspeckle:
by means or dint
of this you may detect
just what a rascal
I actually am.
We ought to be able
to take enough out
now to bank the fire,
get paraffin and candles
in for winter.
Never mind the fact
this looks like an office
in a business block
or some old language
cell waiting to be
demolished. Unclench.
Sing out. “The tatties
are ower the side”.
What a laugh we used to have.
I’ll give you a hand
if that’s what you require.
You were never
one for writing “too
much out of vanity” or
suppressing information
from neglect or disdain.
You always wanted
someone else to hear
it and tell it to.
Willie (chord change) I’m
singing as hard as I can.
I never heard the herrings
come home. I never sought
the sea in that way, no –
though I sought it right enough.
4
That’s gone one:
it must be – and we’ve
still not come (though
it’s moving on now) to
a song that wrecks the heart.
I am a man upon
the land; I am a silkie
in the sea. Nobody’s
actually headed
that I can tell, without
any door provided.
Just you and that expression
of bricked-in pugnacity.
What leads to turbulence?
Who would you tap
to see if they’re sound?
I envy you that
glacier calving: “its
sudden momentary thunder”.
I saw one once
in Disko Bay
beneath a DC 7
stretch, mid-flight.
Full lunar eclipse
the self-same night.
5
Stirring, unstirring
the heavens complete
their happy slow rotation.
Ling and harebell: pinkest
pink and lightest fairest
blue on summer braes
shall still surround us.
6
Listen, that story about
the heilan shepherd just
does not ring right to me.
And it’s not that your words
are not yet come in to
their own true selves.
They have – or will do.
I can sing, by the way, I
said before – though
maybe not now.
I can dance.
(I swear to God).
Whatever you decide
to settle for, whatever
you take our mettle for,
whatever you use
that kettle for, we
like you nonetheless.
And there’s bound to be
a way round somewhere.
Say the word “dark”
often enough with clear
intensity. Ears and items
rapidly adjust. Cones
and eye-rods sharp adapt:
light quick quiver.
Fire and reset;
reset to fire again.
Who would you tap?
And who would you shield from harm?
7
You can just see the chop
on the water. Look over
the side and down.
Let’s be nice to the pilot
though he seems to know fuck all.
Be nice. We’re yawing
just a little bit.
At least no hydrocarbons
dumped on the tundra.
No frozen shit, nor
chicken dinners neither.
Elsewhere, things align.
Here’s mebbe something to chew.
Shoo the crumbs off the table.
‘The way is always there,’
says Kung Fu Tsu –
‘it’s the will that’s wanting’.
Who gives a flying
fart (forgive me),
generous master? And, no
I don’t think I can lend
you a couple of quid –
if that’s what you are
leaning over to ask.
8
Bong – a-long, the clock
once more. Where were we?
The calving. Two
million tons of ice,
gravel, pockets of bacterial
decay: dropping like a
bomb in choppy water
deep down dark
in Disko Bay.
Always you knew
how to lower the tone
to a carrying whisper.
Saying, unsaying
the silence, the gentle
moon comes through
a break of cloud over
Clyde mouth and the Kyles
of Bute, stretching away to
Zennor and Gurnard Head.
9
Is that you there
yourself, caught on the hop
at the top of the Hope Street
stair? I see your face just
past the gas mantle,
taken up in some
grumpy divination.
Mantle glow or not
I’d recognize you.
That quiff, the growl
the gravel and shine once more.
I’ve got you now.
I might have known.
And look: the night’s a pup.
The day will find us sound.
No flash (no need), no
word, no exit wound.
Having waited, having
wanted, here I am for
you now as sure as fate
as death as taxes all up
front and hot to trot.
10
Firing and unfiring
the shallows, a low sough
of wind from offshore
raises dust on the steps
as we go down: wading
in again to meet the salt
dark lance of the sea.
About this poem
This poem was included in the Best of the Best Scottish Poems, published in 2019. To mark the fifteenth anniversary of our annual online anthology Best Scottish Poems, the Library invited broadcaster, journalist and author James Naughtie to edit a ‘Best of the Best’ drawn from each of the annual editions of Best Scottish Poems.
Editor’s comment:
This is an extraordinary piece of writing, a long poem sustained to the end by different rhythms and moods, and never losing its sense of discovery. Alexander Hutchison says it was written over a decade, with the inspiration a 1980s portrait of the poet W.S.Graham, who’s too often neglected. It’s matter-of-fact and energetically imaginative at the same time, swooping off into the distance and plucking unexpected images and thoughts from nowhere. A poem to revisit again and again.
This poem was included in Best Scottish Poems 2009. Best Scottish Poems is an online publication, consisting of 20 poems 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 in 2009 was Andrew Greig.
Editor’s comment:
When I first read this long poem, I was struck, slightly baffled, intrigued. I’ve since read a deal more of Alexander Hutchison. You can guess at the strands, the very diverse influences – Carlos Williams, George Mackay Brown, W.S. Graham, Berryman and the Beats – but the result is a true original. I love the flexibility of tone, the unexpected, the jolt when someone makes a previously unpromising line work as poetry. Who broke the jade? Who let the wild buffalo down? Who indeed. Unapologetically quirky and experimental, yet direct and packed with pleasures; buy and read his selected poems Scales Dog.
Author’s note:
This poem got a start in 1999 or thereabouts and was finished ten years later. The photograph that figures at the beginning and later is based on a portrait of the poet W.S. Graham, taken by Christopher Barker, and used as a cover by the Edinburgh Review in the eighties. Graham, born in 1, Hope Street, Greenock, at the mouth of the Clyde, lived much of his life down on the western tip of Cornwall. Although his poems and letters are a great and lasting achievement, even friends acknowledged the difficulties his personality occasionally created for himself and others. But just in case there is any misunderstanding, the varied tone of this piece, including occasional digs, is well within bounds of familiar Scottish practice. Either deadpan or with a smile. The epigraph is part of Graham’s response in receipt of poems sent by an acquaintance.