Don’t Hesitate to Ask - by
So many of the people I’ve
/ informed that she is dead
/ have said
/ ‘If there’s anything
/ we can do, anything at all,
/ don’t hesitate…
Best Scottish Poems 2016
People Made Glasgow - by
Shame in our hulls
/ why else would we drink to incoherence
/ jump on the heads of passing men
/ punch our women
/ tell our children…
What Is It Like To Be A Herring Gull? - by
After Thomas Nagel*
/
/ Circling the heavy church at the end of the street,
/ they see a cliff-stack above a grey Atlantic,
/
/ an inherited…
A Poem Before Breakfast - by
before the door opens and the pony crashes in with hoof-dirt and flicky
/ muzzle. You ordered eggs and toast but Pony’s…
Reprieve - by
Be careful.
/ Just because death came
/ close enough to feel its non-breathing
/ and then stepped back,
/ you are no matador.
/ The blackness does not charge
/ in…
Full Stretch - by
and this is where you are watching me before the fire and I am
/ lying with the death-stillness on me…
Breenge - by
This morning, as the 372 shoogled
/ through Carsethorn, hirpled
/ wabbit past the kirk and through
/ dreich smirr hoyed down from
/ droukit braes above,…
What Not to Write on the Back Jacket of Your Debut Collection - by
This book is not bad.
/ A number of these poems feature the poet’s dog: George.
/ The author’s mother recommends this book.
/ Boris Johnson…
‘We used to think the universe was made…’ - by
We used to think the universe was made
/ of tiny invisible pin-points of energy, jostling
/ and tumbling and buzzing together, and so,
/ by…
In the Mid-Midwinter - by
after John Donne’s ‘A Nocturnal on St Lucy’s Day’
/
/ At midday on the year’s midnight
/ into my mind came
/ I saw the new…
The Conversion of Sheep - by
When St Fillian first came upon the sheep
/ they stood with their Sumerian heads
/ and stared him out…
This Is It - by
Skint, baw ragged, poackets ful eh ma
/ fingers, cannae afford tae burn toast an
/ it’s November. Christmas is close. Av been
/ away bit…