An online library of poems from the Scottish Poetry Library.
I’ve lost a lot of things worth while my pleasure and my fun,
And the days of my captivity pass slowly one by one,
But as I sit in loneliness, each day more plain I see,
My body may be captive but my heart and mind are free.
He minded dem getting torpedoed i da White Sea,
hit blew da boo clean aff.
Da Bulksheid, he held though an dey limpit inta Arcangel,
whaur shu wis lashed ta da peir, an micht still be dere yet.
The ferm wis a peat shed, a stack o hackit kinnlin
The ferm wis reeshlin corn and a tattiebogle
The ferm wis buits lined up bi the lowe fur blaikin
The ferm wis washin skelpin in the win
feasgar ciùin foghair
’s thu air do shlighe dhan bhaile,
uisge rèidh a’ bhàigh na teine
fo gathan fada na grèine
Tha obair cealla na chùis-iongnaidh,
gràsan Dhè gun stad a’ taomadh;
bheir sinn ùmhlachd dhan a’ chealla,
tha làn de mhìorbhailean matha.
Needles plunge. Consultants come and go.
Today, leukocytes are easy to locate;
tomorrow, next year, they may sink below.
Earth pushes up
through our footsoles
air spins us
in its thinning spheres
time flies through us
Hunt out wild flowers,
reach out, not to pick them
but as an offer of intimacy.
Smaller than you imagined.
More like your idea of a dog’s.
You cup it softly. Your thumb fidgets
over the fissure of a temporal lobe.
they said
you’re not a real
boy until you cut
the wizard out of the tree
sometimes what I’d love
is to put an end to poems
You’ve already admitted that you came unprepared.
You’ve already admitted that you need them
more than they need you.
