O wad this braw hie-heapit toun Sail aff like an enchanted ship, Drift owre the warld’s seas up and doun, And kiss wi’ Venice lip to lip, Or anchor into Naples’ Bay A misty island far astray Or set her rock to Athens’ wa’, Pillar to pillar, stane to stane, The cruikit spell o’ her […]
Robert Louis Stevenson,
/ the author in his jimjams,
/ wrote about the New Town,
/ its draughty parallelograms…
In twos and threes, they have not far to roam, / Crowds that thread eastward, gay of eyes…
Far from the scent of the crocus
/ And the pavanne of Scottish daffodils
/ A loud crash was heard in Princes Street.
/ Safe from…
Our strength is our difference. / Dinny fear it. Dinny caw canny. …
Tune: Ti, ti, ti, ta (wi’ apologies tae Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony)
/
/ I
/
/ Duddingston Loch
/ Skate ower…
Remembering an Edinburgh neighbour
/
/
/ Descending her garden path
/ she turns, backtracks indoors
/ again, and into the front room
/ to straighten a…
O whence the leaves
scuttering down Easter Road,
sycamore and rowan
desperate as refugees
On day 1, explore Edinburgh Castle sitting proud: / find the modest crown of a far from quiet country, /…
Stone above storms, you rear upon the ridge:
/ we live on your back, its crag-and-tail,
/
/ spires and tenements stacked on your spine,
/ the…
The auld Assembly-rooms, whaur Scott
foregethert wi his fiers,
nou see a gey kenspeckle lot
ablow the chandeliers.
My only talent lay in these.
/ My father rubbed his hands together,
/ stared as though their whorls held codes
/ of thirty years obstetric…
