Shrunkelt
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.
