Scotland, You’re No Mine - by
Scotland, you’re no mine
(you were no his)
and I don’t want you.
Scotland
from Don Juan - by
It may seem a schoolboy’s whine,
And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head.
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 […]
The Bridge Over The Atlantic - by
They took our birlinn, stem and stern-postsHigh as a Venetian gondola’s, and up-turned it.Every tide in the bladder-wracked sea-tongue its keel Bridged, swam the eel-currentRaces that tracked South and NorthInto and out of the Atlantic. And theyDocked our tongues, every man’s that daredGive out a taste of his father’s banter,Effortless sound-shapes an islander’s born to. […]
ripe - by
for experiment: dissect, slice, scrape, magnify what is above (its glories), watch. What are feelingsto this caste (not so pale) of cell wall upon cell wall, death of […]
Demerara - by
Eliza Junor, born 1804, Demerara, died Fortrose, 1861; daughter of Hugh Junor, slave owner from the Black Isle, and an unknown mother, probably a slave, or a ‘free coloured’ woman. Died Fortrose, 1861; won a prize for penmanship at Fortrose Academy. I’ve learned my letters well – my copperplate masts and sailsflow across the page, […]
Hello, I am Scotland - by
Who wakes every morning
/ in a brilliant mood as auburn bursts
/ cast filigree nets over foreheads
/ and swingparks and paint themselves
/ on pavements.
Stevenson’s Edinburgh - by
Robert Louis Stevenson,
/ the author in his jimjams,
/ wrote about the New Town,
/ its draughty parallelograms…
The Beginning of a New Song - by
Let her new river shine on a day
That is fresh and glittering and contemporary;
Let it be true to itself and to its origins
Inventive, original, philosophical
Sanctified - by
Scotland where can we find you, / where are you hiding your gallus self?…
Strathconon - by
When you took the autumn to London
/ And left me to burrow into winter
/ I said they could pack up Strathconon
/ Box up…
Heart - by
Home is where the heart is / or home is where the art is…