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  • Shrunkelt
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Shrunkelt

Raymond Vettese

There were cobbles then in George Street,
whan I wis young, message-laddie
til Bob Mackenzie, The Grocer, North Street

The bike dunted ower them, shook
aa – my banes, my teeth; I thocht thir
(dozent fancy) the shrunkelt skulls

o monie deid. Thoosans o skulls
I forced my wheels ower!
And the craw o youth as I thrust

pedals doon wi the micht o fifteen years,
drave my wheels, my pooer, ower the deid,
whisslin the glaidness o the life I’d got.

no like them, the egg-heided powkers-up
frae the past, the lang-forotten.
I thrust doon the pedals and thocht me lowsed

o the past, the deid. Ay weel, the cobbles
are gane, alang wil yon whisslin laddie
and Bob Mackenzie, The Grocer, North Street.


Raymond Vettese

from A Keen New Air (Saltire Society, 1995)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

Fife & Angus Scotland Scots
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Raymond Vetteseb.1950

Raymond Vettese was born in Abroath, educated at Montrose Academy, and has two collections of poetry written in Scots.
More about Raymond Vettese

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