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  • the unknown
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the unknown

The Way - by Edwin Muir

{ Poem }

Friend, I have lost the way.
/ The way leads on.
/ Is there another way?
/ The way is one.
/ I must retrace the track.
/ It’s lost…

Timor mortis conturbat me - by Diana Hendry

{ Poem }

Will it give me six months warning
/ Or come when least expected?
/ Will I trip over it one morning
/ And find…

Borders - by Stuart A. Paterson

{ Poem }

That sound outside, near Sandyhills bridge,
/ along Barnhourie Burn, a high wild wailing
/ winding down to a long low growl of echo,
/ has…

The Storm - by Irfan Merchant

{ Poem }

This might be the calm before the storm / or this might be the storm; / some are sunbathing on…

The Song of the Ungirt Runners - by Charles Hamilton Sorley

{ Poem }

We swing ungirded hips, / And lightened are our eyes, / The rain is on our lips, / We do…

When Will the War Be By? - by Charles Murray

{ Poem }

“This year, neist year, sometime, never,”
/ A lanely lass, bringing hame the kye,
/ Pu’s at a…

In No Man’s Land - by E. Alan Mackintosh

{ Poem }

Anyway, shooting is over bold,
/ Oh, damn you, get back to your trench, you blighter,
/ I really can’t shoot a man with…

from ‘Playing God’ - by Glenn Colquhoun

{ Poem }

10. A note of warning to patients when all else fails
/
/ Sometimes the needle is too blunt.
/ The stethoscope is too quiet.
/ The…

Going without Saying - by Bernard O'Donoghue

{ Poem }

i.m. Joe Flynn
/
/ It is a great pity we don’t know
/ When the dead are going to die
/ So that, over a last…

Winter (EM) - by Edwin Morgan

{ Poem }

The year goes, the woods decay, and after,
many a summer dies. The swan
on Bingham’s pond, a ghost, comes and goes.

Wit is it - by William Letford

{ Poem }

The stonemason sade it’s aw in yur heed
/ Yur eyes ur like windeez an yur brain’s gon naywhere
/ Build yurself a palace
/
/ The…

Geese - by Ian McFadyen

{ Poem }

That I choose you or
/ you choose me to
/ make our lives together is
/ a lie:
/
/ whatever binds us
/ is whatever holds…

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Scottish Poetry Library
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Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
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The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
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