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  • Best Scottish Poems 2012
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Best Scottish Poems 2012

Visiting Winter: a Johannesburg Quintet - by William Bonar

{ Poem }

1. Visiting Winter
/
/ a wee bit frosting
/ by night
/ buys a wheen o
/ sun block
/ Naw, ye’ll no see me
/ back north
/ he hoasts
/ cauld n beery
/
/ 2. Scrap
/
/ Metal,…

The Eye - by Sheenagh Pugh

{ Poem }

Across the bay, they’re building a house
/ with a glass wall, panes all the way up
/
/ into the gable, windows that wrap
/ around…

Wit is it - by William Letford

{ Poem }

The stonemason sade it’s aw in yur heed
/ Yur eyes ur like windeez an yur brain’s gon naywhere
/ Build yurself a palace
/
/ The…

The Witches - by Vicki Feaver

{ Poem }

The witches knew the truth – / smelling my wickedness / with huge hooked noses.

The Haunt - by Roddy Lumsden

{ Poem }

Betwixt of January,
the year’s scantest trawl.

Dionysus and the Maiden - by Robin Robertson

{ Poem }

after Nonnus
/
/ I
/
/ Her only home was here in this forest, among the high rocks,
/ sending her long arrows in flight through…

Spinning plates - by Richie McCaffery

{ Poem }

My mother was mad as mercury,
/ mad as a silken Disraeli stovepipe hat
/ hiding a gypsum-white rabbit.
/
/ She once told me – the…

Cocktail hour - by Richard Price

{ Poem }

Measure out, administer.
/
/ Katie’s half dribbling, half tiny-bubbling.
/ She’s laughing (gentle). She’s not swallowing this, tells it
/ in a viscous mumble, bright red…

This Was the Year - by Pippa Little

{ Poem }

This was the year before the year
/ that collapsed on us, a roof brought down by snow.
/ The year of riding through…

Sacrifice/Ìobairt - by Maggie Rabatski

{ Poem }

And this was known as the milk room,
/ the coldest room in the cool house.
/ There, on a paint-stained table,
/ Jugs and bowls…

Pigeon with Warburtons - by Lorna Callery

{ Poem }

dead still
/
/ no nervous skull-shakes
/ or scuttle-pecks
/
/ still
/
/ hiding in doorway shadows
/ as sun slides
/ like a drunkard
/ down dull bricks
/
/ head still
/
/ a single slice of bread
/ hollowed out…

Favourite Place - by Liz Lochhead

{ Poem }

We would be snaking up Loch Lomond, the
/ road narrow and winding after the turn at Tarbert,
/ and we’d be bending branches…

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