Brooklyn Cop - by
Built like a gorilla but less timid,
thick-fleshed, steak-coloured, with two
hieroglyphs in his face that mean
trouble,
portraits
An Old Woman Cooking Eggs - by
That’s me in the painting.
/ My face smooth and brow clear,
/ for I do not worry over
/ what I cannot see.
To Margaret on a Monday - by
I saw you from my window, Margaret.
/ I was watching the seagulls swooping the sky.
/ The seagulls, I was telling myself, know
/ today…
The Duke - by
The heid-bummer, prood wi a ryaltie o a shillin a ton
/ lik the hovein o the coals alow the hauch o…
A Memory of Death - by
Nineteen fifty six was a momentous year,
/ The year of Suez…
Portrait of Ana Dali - by
Ana Dali, Salvador’s sister,
/ shown here in an ominous frock,
/ eloped with an amorous easel
/ to the melting apartment block.
/ She waves through a…
Curtain - by
Remembering an Edinburgh neighbour
/
/
/ Descending her garden path
/ she turns, backtracks indoors
/ again, and into the front room
/ to straighten a…
Head of a Young Woman - by
Five thousand years between us, and yet / not a moment, it seems…
The Old Lady - by
Autumn, and the nights are darkening.
/ The old lady tells us of her past once more.
/ She muses on the days she…
A Quiet Life - by
in memory of my grandfather
/ (after Schubert’s piano sonata in C minor D958)
/
/
/ Hammer-blows ring on a hull in dry-dock
/ then dazzling sparks…
Photograph, Art Student, Female, Working Class - by
How does she feel? Hey, girl, did it feel strange / To be waiting for the a-changing times to change?…
Portrait: Mr Dreamer of Butterflies After a Long Illness in Bed - by
He has wasted away into
/ a stick of incense
/ smoke
/ a ribbon of rain
/ a willow stem
/ a reed
/ thin like the winter sun
/ The resilient antenna
/ of…