Lifestream - by
At night I am visited by fish, their tiny bodies
pulled from a book.
language
Hoy Sound - by
Artist’s publication
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.
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…