The Grass Boat - by
We’ve been playing unobserved
in the old brickyard, a place abandoned
to its toy-town railway, rusty iron tubs.
We’ve been playing unobserved
in the old brickyard, a place abandoned
to its toy-town railway, rusty iron tubs.
I resembled a self un-sewn a child’s drawing in a hospital room
when I left that room I was wonky
walking the way a stain would run
Shote! here’s the poliss,
the Gayfield poliss,
an thull pi’iz in the nick fir
pleyan fi’baw in the street!
See ma mammy;
says eat yer dinner.
Gies me cabbidge.
Shhh, what did you want to show
that couldn’t wait until the morning?
Was it the moon – because I see it:
the first good bead on a one-bead string
He can make a sculptureand fabulous machines, invent games, tell jokes,give solemn, adult advice-but he is slow to read.When I take him on my kneewith his Ladybird bookhe gazes into the air,sighing and shaking his headlike an old manwho knows the mountainsare impassable. He toys with words,letting them go coldas gristly meat,until I relentand let […]
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
The whiskey on your breathCould make a small boy dizzy;But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pansSlid from the kitchen shelf;My mother’s countenanceCould not unfrown itself. The hand that held my wristWas battered on one knuckle;At every step you missedMy right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time […]
You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswân.
Base Camp. Horizontal sleet. Two small boys
have raised the steel flag of the 20 terminus:
me and Ross Mudie are going up the Hilltown
for the first time ever on our own.
I remember once being shown the black bull
when a child at the farm for eggs and milk
Something near to true
night-darkness. The children
are playing the Plinky-Boat –
a xylophone made
from a reclaimed yoal
We will be closed on Thursday the 30th of November for the St Andrew's Day holiday. Dismiss