Wee oors - by
In the heich oors o the nicht
/ stars strip aff
/ and douk in the rivers.
/
/ Hoolets grein for them,
/ the wee feathers on…
Best Scottish Poems 2010
Juist laek Maunna - by
Burrafirth, Unst circa 1870
/
/ Whin I wis a buyy, da age at platched
/ Ida troot-loch, hokkit ida burn
/ We guid heem weet, hoopful
/ Fur…
Kalighat - by
Only a blue string tethers him to the present.
/ The small black goat; the stone enclosure;
/ the forked wooden altar washed in…
Homecoming - by
I wanted bed, roast beef and rain,
/ to wear the clothes I’d left behind
/ and have them make me think again
/ steadily, with…
on the library - by
it shone at night
/ it shone beautifully
/
/ it shone like the eddystone
/ it shone like the fire-cave
/ it shone like the old torpedo works
/ it…
Garden of Love - by
I like gardening. Since I am God
/ I can decide – inside these fences –
/ who lives, who dies, whose will is…
Rutherglen - by
Having split, with patience,
/ my first pound note
/ I kept the two halves
/ in case of disbelief.
/ They gave me a glow.
Love Sonnet LXXII - by
Pablo Neruda, Amor mio, el invierno regresa a sus cuarteles…
/
/ My luve, winter merches back tae barracks,
/ earth sets doon its yalla…
‘Abraham wielded a watering can…’ - by
Abraham wielded a watering can.
/ With star-mangled fervour
/ he sprinkled the Arctic, the Sahara.
/
/ Five years later, a riot of wild
/ orchids and…
Iona - by
Where are you taking us, sir?
/ the crew needed to know;
/ but since by the final day
/ …
Spring in the Valley of the Racehorse - by
He tenses against the hot
metal of the starting-gate,
eyeballing the wide swatch
of flat green
Shangtu - by
From The Journals of Marco Polo, I. 61
/
/ At Shangtu he keeps a stud :
/ ten thousand mares and geldings, all white…