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Yesnaby

George Gunn

Beyond you America
behind you Stromness
far from me now
the tides changing on you
as I walk the crowded mile
of Byres Road, you curve
in my mind like a film
I would run over your top lip
through an equinoxial autumn
putting words in the mouths
of fishermen & crofters
you speak to me still
a language of salt & gull & wave
Hoy over my shoulders like an uncle


George Gunn

from Dream State, edited by Donny O’Rourke (Polygon, 2002)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

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Orkney Islands Scotland
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George Gunnb.1956

George Gunn was born in Thurso in 1956 where he still lives. He has been a deep-sea fisherman, a driller for oil in the North Sea, a journalist, playwright and poet.
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