Hoy Sound - by
Artist’s publication
language
Malcolm MacKerral - by
MacKerral, that was one hard winter. Your father died on the moor road,his bag of meal buried under snows.Death relieved him of his load. Raking wilks with freezing fingers,your little sisters crawled the shore,scourged by gusting showersuntil their knees were raw and sore. Your few black cattle, thin and famished,lay and died at the far […]
Kinloch Ainort - by
A company of mountains, an upthrust of mountains,
a great garth of growing mountains,
a concourse of summits, of knolls, of hills
coming on with a fearsome roaring.
The Way My Mother Speaks - by
I say her phrases to myself
in my head
or under the shallows of my breath,
restful shapes moving.
The day and ever. The day and ever.
Old Tongue - by
When I was eight, I was forced south. Not long after, when I opened my mouth, a strange thing happened. I lost my Scottish accent. Words fell off my tongue: eedyit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit stummer, teuchter, heidbanger, so you are, so am ur, see you, see ma ma, shut yer geggie or I’ll gie you […]
Here’s the Weather - by
Fae stooshie tae fankle tae bouroch tae dreck / we’re steeped in the downpour of dialect.
/ …
Catalogue of my grandmother’s sayings - by
A bloody good hiding
/ Another egg chipped
/ …
Outwith - by
Revising my visa essay,
applying for three more years
here, I read my own scribbled words
Garland for the Winter Solstice - by
Now, perched on this polar height
When all sap lies quiet and does not climb,
When all seems dead, I cultivate
The wild garden rioting in my memory
After Lunch, Ekali - by
September 1st, 1939.
/
/ Cicalas burst the air, a heat-haze quivers
/ on the pale plain, the glittering…
Avoiding the gods - by
They have come
/ to scald our blood, to call us out
/ from our bright houses to the twisted shadows under trees.
/ Let us…
The Glassblower Dances - by
The words first appeared on a lamp post
/ on a dirty road between a chip shop
/ and some tired Turkish…