Surprise, Surprise - by
MacSween the corner butcher with confidence displays
/ for denizens of the city – ‘of toons the a per se’
/ a vegetarian haggis,…
Best Scottish Poems 2008
Setting Out - by
The gravestones still weigh the same.
/ No-one has altered the dates.
/
/ No-one asks why I’ve come back
/ again. To see not graves but
/
/ that…
Precious - by
Dressing yourself, you have found leopard-print tights
/ can be made to match a tiger-print top and ruby slippers,
/ absolutely flat; that you…
Two letters to Horace - by
1.
/
/ Dear Quintus Horatius Flaccus,
/ may I have a poem?
/ We run this little magazine.
/ It would be a good advertisement
/ for your books.
/ Our…
The Look - by
The heron’s the look of the river.
/ The moon’s the look of the night.
/ The sky’s the look of forever.
/ Snow is the…
Nightshift at the Plug Mill - by
Four hours into the dark I’d fall asleep
/ for seconds, then wake to the scream
/ of gears, as the belt started up
/ and…
I am the moon, and you are the man on me - by
Tonight, I am white and full.
/ My surface is all curves
/ and craters, but you don’t mind.
/ You have travelled alone through the…
Hedgehog, Hamnavoe - by
Flinching in my hands
/ this soiled and studded but good heart,
/ which stippling my cupped palms, breathes –
/
/ a kidney flinching on…