Poems | Scottish Poetry Library

becoming still - by Julie Johnstone

{ Poem }

becoming still still becoming

pausing here - by Julie Johnstone

{ Poem }

pausing here to read this reading this to pause here

slow - by Julie Johnstone

{ Poem }

slow down long enough to read these words

Who’s In? - by Elizabeth Fleming

{ Poem }

‘The door is shut fast And everyone’s out.’ But people don’t know What they’re talking about! Say the fly on the wall, And the flame on the coals, And the dog on his rug, And the mice in their holes, And the kitten curled up, And the spiders that spin — ‘What, everyone out? Why, […]

Wild Animals - by Elizabeth Fleming

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I like a mouseWhen he’s not in my house,And a ratWhen he goes nibble, nibble, like that.I like a mole; he’s a kind little soul,And a stoatWith a smudge like snow on his throat.I like a shrewWith his nose in the dew,And a hare,For he leaps and runs everywhere;I like a foxWith his little white […]

The Price of Enlightenment - by Gordon Meade

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Have I, I wonder, finally attained enlightenment? Today, everything is as it is. The breakwater is just a breakwater.The sea is just the sea. And the heron, fishing in a rock pool, is nothing more than a heron fishing, and the rock pool itself is as clear as day. Why then is it that I […]

Lord of All - by Gordon Meade

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He is the lord of all he surveys, eventhough it is not that much, less than an acre of lawn and a handful of trees. Still, he likes to keep his beady eye on things, his feathery finger on the pulse. Even if just a single sparrow stirs, he likes to know about it. You […]

Wound - by George Gunn

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Take this wound that I offer youkeep it close & love it wellfor the storm may run at Faraidthe surf turn white Loch Eribollbut no wind can blow an organised peopleacross the unknowable oceanor drown their history in the swell we are cut & yes we bleedbut we are time & headland & will healforging […]

Love on the croft in the time of wi-fi - by Ian Crockatt

{ Poem }

If you suffer pain And you can’t stoop yourself for fear your spine, Stiffening under the strain, Will flex, with a jolt flex again Like the neck of a heron,Or a flamingo’s s of feather and flame swaying onIts stalk, or a mind goneSpiralling into itself like a dog’s digging up a bone Or trying […]

The Bridge Over The Atlantic - by Ian Crockatt

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They took our birlinn, stem and stern-postsHigh as a Venetian gondola’s, and up-turned it.Every tide in the bladder-wracked sea-tongue its keel Bridged, swam the eel-currentRaces that tracked South and NorthInto and out of the Atlantic. And theyDocked our tongues, every man’s that daredGive out a taste of his father’s banter,Effortless sound-shapes an islander’s born to. […]

The Old Year - by John Clare

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The Old Year’s gone away
To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night

Before the ice is in the pools - by Emily Dickinson

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Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!

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