Between - by
I lie awake
/ listening to the wind.
/ There are metaphors and
/ metaphors but none
/ to put up this longing
/ for my new love.
/ The house creaks…
Best Scottish Poems 2006
Two haiku - by
that daft dog
/ chasing the train
/ then letting it go
/
/
/
/ dumb bumblebee
/ bumps the windowpane
/ again again again…
My father’s hand - by
I like to wear a band around my wrist,
/ an amulet of copper, links of bling,
/ a hippy weave of cotton…
Wormwood - by
for Don Paterson
/
/ A flight of loose stairs off the street into a high succession
/ of empty rooms, prolapsed chairs and a…
Fergusson’s Statue - by
Ye’re stridin doon the Canongate, brent new
/ and lookin like ye’ve never been awa,
/ were never found curled deid upon the…
icarus mentor - by
looking in the box
/ of balsa wood fragments,
/ you touch broken wings
/ and white tail, bright torn
/ scraps, painted numbers.
/
/ you remember…
Sloes - by
He was in Paris for the weekend:
/ on his own – she was mad
/ to think otherwise.
/
/ She took the children
/ on an expedition…
If I Was Dead - by
If I was dead,
/ and my bones adrift
/ like dropped oars
/ in the deep, turning earth;
/
/ or drowned,
/ and my skull…
Old Photograph - by
It is VE Night, Tobermory.
/ Cottages blaze and shimmer in the mirror of the bay.
/ Light is necklaced everywhere,
/ on the…
Peeled - by
Is there anything I shouldn’t say?
/ Just don’t tell her
/ you’re a lapsed Catholic, you reply
/ but when your mother asks
/ I can’t bring…
Atheist Lighting a Candle in Albi Cathedral - by
for Tyler
/
/ It seems to matter
/ I use a Zippo,
/ not the taper’s monkish flame.
/
/ It seems to matter I choose the…
Late Love - by
How they strut about, people in love,
/ how tall they grow, pleased with themselves,
/ their hair, glossy, their skin shining.
/ They don’t remember…