literature

123d

WILOMENA: The Land of Dreams & Nightmares
11 August, Waterstones Sauchiehall St, Glasgow: £3/£5/£12 (with book)

Glasgow’s comic-book duo metaphrog launch their new children’s graphic novel. Wilomena has fallen into the land of dreams & nightmares – and the nightmares are taking over! With the help of a talking cat called Mephisto, can Wilomina find her family & the way home before she turns into a nightmare herself?

https://www.waterstones.com/events/celebrate-the-launch-of-wilomina/glasgow-sauchiehall-street

#Scottish #literature #comic #graphicnovel #kidlit

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172d

#OTD in 1895 Oscar Wilde was convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.

During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis. And once released, he wrote one final poem: “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (1898).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde

Books by Oscar Wilde at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/111

#Books #Literature

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) on May 23 1889. Picture by W. and D. Downey.

A black-and-white studio photograph of Oscar Wilde with dark, wavy hair seated in an ornately carved chair. He wears a double-breasted suit with a patterned cravat, white pocket square, and a large floral boutonnière.

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficheiro:Oscar_Wilde_(1854-1900)_1889,_May_23._Picture_by_W._and_D._Downey.jpg

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172d

A Restless Intellect

“Widely respected – & regularly attacked (once physically) – in her lifetime, she is now largely neglected; an intriguing aside to feminism or to agnosticism. Dixie deserves better.”

Florence Dixie (1855–1905) – novelist, poet, dramatist, war correspondent, campaigning journalist, suffragist, & more – was born #OTD, 25 May. Dr Valentina Bold explores Dixie’s roving life

1/2

https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2021/12/a-restless-intellect-florence-dixie-1855-1905/

#Scottish #literature #Victorian #19thcentury #womenwriters

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172d

“The rough-finish Mitre. Half football, half Portuguese Man o’ War. On the verge of a ban in the European Court of Human Rights, this model is not for sale to children. […] Made from highly durable fibre-glass, stuffed with neutron star and coated with dead jellyfish.”

—from “Playground Football” by Christopher Brookmyre

Today, 25 May, is World Football Day ⚽

https://dearscotland.com/2009/08/07/playground-football-by-christopher-brookmyre/

#Scottish #literature #football #soccer #worldfootballday

A white football (i.e. soccer ball – the game where you mostly hit the ball with your feet, rather than carry it in your hands, I'm just saying) – the Mouldmaster 5 Mitre. It's white, moulded in plastic, with a rough finish and with shallow grooves to mimic panels on a leather football.

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172d

Like all those red-faced boys
in brand-new football strips

dribbling a ball around
in a circle of streetlight

or practicing their footwork
in the park

in Cowdenbeath, Arbroath,
Kirkcudbright, Govan,

I wanted the triumph of willpower
over strength

grace over
money…

—John Burnside, “Euro 96: A Fan’s Farewell”

A poem for World Football Day ⚽

https://www.un.org/en/observances/football-day

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JohnBurnside #football #soccer #WorldFootballDay

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171d

Tha sinn air a bhith ri rudan do-dhèanta a-rithist.
A’ crochadh san adhair, a’ feitheamh diog, tiotag, linn,
nas fhàide nas àirde na bu chòir a bhith comasach.
Chaidh leintean-T a dhèanamh dhinn mus do landaig sinn…

—Pàdraig MacAoidh, “Ris an do-dhèanta”

A poem for World Football Day ⚽

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/ris-an-do-dheanta/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #football #soccer #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #WorldFootballDay

Ris an do-dhèanta
Pàdraig MacAoidh

Tha sinn air a bhith ri rudan do-dhèanta a-rithist.
A’ crochadh san adhair, a’ feitheamh diog, tiotag, linn,
nas fhàide nas àirde na bu chòir a bhith comasach.
Chaidh leintean-T a dhèanamh dhinn mus do landaig sinn.

Tha sinn air fhaighinn tharais air na rudan as miosa,
a’ coiseachd nam mìltean fada sin – coig ceud, coig mìle –
gus cnàmhan agus buill-nasg a chur ceart, gus ar corragan a shìneadh,
agus mion-car a chur air an t-saoghal, tharais air a’ bhàr.

O agus chum sin ar n-anail nar milleanan,
air bhoile le chèile, a’ coimhead bàla a’ tùirling
na àrc àbhaisteach mìorbhaileach coileanta
agus a’ tuiteam, meath mar bhogha-frois, dhan talamh.

Seadh, rinn sinn rudan do-dhèanta. Ach a-nis –
ann am Miami, Boston, ge b’àit – tha againn rin dèanamh
a-rithist. Agus an uairsin, yes sir, nì sinn boogie,
ri òran sam bith a tha sinn ag iarraidh.

At the Impossible
Peter Mackay

We’ve been at the impossible again. Levitating.
Hanging in the air one, two seconds, an age,
longer and higher than should be possible.
The T-shirts were printed before we’d hit the ground.

We have recovered from the worst of times,
walking long miles – five hundred, five thousand –
to wrest bones and ligaments back to fitness
and tip the world over with the last skelf of skin.

And we have held a million breaths
in frantic unison, watching a ball tumble
in its everyday, humdrum perfect parabola,
to fall plump as a rainbow back to earth.

O we’ve been at the impossible but must now –
in Miami, Boston, anywhere, anyhow –
do it all over again. And then yes sir, we shall boogie,
absolutely, to whatever song we choose.

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144d

Having glided smoothly upwards –

Up ...!
And up ...!
And up ...!

Behold, Tony Blair standing where he should be –
poised sixty years and more above
the city of his birth…

—Ron Butlin, “Tony Blair’s Butterfly Effect”
published in THE MAGICIANS OF SCOTLAND (Birlinn, 2015)

Listen to Ron Butlin read this poem on the Poetry Archive:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/tony-blairs-butterfly-effect/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #PimeMinister #TonyBlair #ButterflyEffect

Tony Blair’s butterfly effect – when these wings beat,
distant city walls tumble,
men, women and children die.

Edited 144d ago

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171d

How Henry James Became the American Giant of English Literature

The life of Henry James, who left America for a cosmopolitan life in Europe before settling in England and contributing multiple masterpieces to its literature.

by Dr. Victoria C. Roskams

https://www.thecollector.com/henry-james-english-literature/

Books by Henry James at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/113

#Books #Literature

Portrait of Henry James, charcoal drawing by John Singer Sargent (1912).

A charcoal portrait drawing of Henry James, a heavyset bald man with deep-set eyes and a serious, introspective expression. He wears a dark jacket and bow tie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_James#/media/File:Portrait_of_Henry_James_1913.jpg

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171d

Today is Dracula Day.

Some monsters never die 🧛‍♀️
Bram Stoker gave the world more than a vampire. He created a shadow that still follows us through books, films, dreams, and nightmares.

#DraculaDay #Dracula #BramStoker #Stoker #books #vampire #literature #reading #today #onthisday #bookstodon @bookstodon #booksky #BookTok #readers #novel #horror #horrorbooks #bookstagram

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171d

I see the old woman behind the flowering broom.
I have followed her from poem to poem …

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Old Woman”
published in Deer on the High Hills: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2021)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800170940/deer-on-the-high-hills/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Old Woman
Iain Crichton Smith

I see the old woman behind the flowering broom.
I have followed her from poem to poem

and her grey coat is almost hidden by that yellow and red
on a May day with white clouds overhead

billowing with pillows. Yes, she carries her bag
home from the village shop.
And behind her a stag

in my imagination rears its magnificent head
out of the stones and flowers and small hills of the dead.

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171d

The Scottish anthropologist who inspired Dracula

“More decidedly evil is the nosferatu, or vampire, in which every Roumanian peasant believes as firmly as he does in heaven or hell…”

—from Emily Gerard’s THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST: Facts, Figures, & Fancies from Transylvania (1888). Her work was a key part of Bram Stoker’s research materials for Dracula.

Today, 26 May, is Dracula Day 🧛‍♂️

1/3

https://crimereads.com/the-scottish-anthropologist-who-inspired-dracula/

#Scottish #literature #Romania #vampire #folklore #anthropology #DraculaDay

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171d

#OTD in 1897. First publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Let's celebrate #DraculaDay!

The novel was mostly written in the 1890s, and Stoker produced over a hundred pages of notes, drawing extensively from folklore and history. He probably found the name "Dracula" in Whitby's public library while on holiday, selecting it because he thought it meant 'devil' in Romanian.

Dracula at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345

#Books #Literature

Henry Irving is widely considered to have inspired Dracula.

John Bernard Partridge - The Lyceum "Faust." By Joseph Hatton ... with illustrations from drawings by W. Telbin, Hawes Craven, W. H. Margetson, J. Bernard Partridge, and Helen H. Hatton

Taken from "The Ilustrated London News"

A black-and-white engraving of a theatrical figure in a sweeping dark cape, one arm thrust skyward, the other outstretched. He wears a pointed cap, tight hose, and an ornate belt, with a pallid, wide-eyed expression of dark exultation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula#/media/File:Mephistophles_on_the_Brocken_(cropped).jpg

Handwritten notes about the novel's characters.

A handwritten manuscript page headed "Historiae Personae — Dracula" — Bram Stoker's early working notes listing characters for his novel, with many names cross…A handwritten manuscript page headed "Historiae Personae — Dracula" — Bram Stoker's early working notes listing characters for his novel, with many names crossed out and revised. Recognisable entries include Jonathan Harker (the lawyer's clerk), Wilhelmina Murray (called Mina), Lucy Westenra, Dr. Seward, and Count Dracula. Earlier rejected names are heavily struck through. Notes at the bottom mention a "secret room" and "dinner of 13," revealing the novel's plot still in formation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula#/media/File:Stoker_Dracula_Notes_Personal.jpg

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177d

How to read postcolonial writing

The Granta controversy surrounding a Commonwealth Prize-winning story tells us less about AI than about the enduring metropolitan expectation that writing from the South should sound opaque, excessive, and primitive.

https://africasacountry.com/2026/05/how-to-read-postcolonial-writing

#Africa #AI #Writing #Literature #GlobalSouth #AIAC

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171d

Mrs Bram Stoker’s recipe for “Dracula Salad” – a bit of an oxymoron? – published in CRUDEN RECIPES & WRINKLES (Cruden Parish Church, 1912), & contributed shortly after Bram Stoker’s death. Via Mike Shepherd on Facebook
🧛‍♂️

https://www.facebook.com/groups/scotlit/posts/10161485849160090/

#Literature #Dracula #recipes #salad #DraculaDay #BramStoker

Part of a page from Cruden Recipes and Wrinkles (1912). The paper is old and slightly spotted with age.

Salads, Sauces, &c.

SALAD.
(Mrs PIRIE, Bank House, Lonmay).
Wash and pick two heads of lettuce. Shred them, and add the white of a hard boiled egg cut in rings. Pound the yolk. Add a little salt, a large teaspoonful of made mustard, one breakfastcupful of cream, and a little vinegar. Mix well. Pour over the lettuce, and turn over the whole a few times with a spoon and fork. If liked a few slices of tomato may be added.

THE "DRACULA" SALAD.
(Mrs BRAM STOKER, 26 St George's Square, London, S.W.)
Arrange alternate slices of ripe tomatoes, and ripe, purple, egg-shaped plums in dish, and dress with oil and vinegar French dressing.

BREAD SAUCE.
(Mrs J. SMITH, Easterton, Peterhead).
1/2 pint milk.
2 cloves.
1 small onion.
2 oz. bread crumbs.
Pepper and salt.
1 oz. butter.

Stick the cloves in the onion. Put the milk in a saucepan. Add the onion, and set at the side of stove for half an hour. Warm it, but do not boil. Shake out the onion and add the crumbs, butter, salt, and a good pinch of pepper. Stir until the bread crumbs have absorbed the milk.

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171d

Ali Smith wins the 2026 Dublin Literary Award for her novel GLIFF

“Through the eyes of two young protagonists navigating an increasingly authoritarian society, we are reminded that courage is not always loud, but it is always consequential. At a moment when democracy across the world can too often feel fragile, this novel is a powerful reminder that freedom, dignity and democratic values should never be taken for granted.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/2026/05/21/dublin-literary-award-2026-ali-smith-wins-100000-prize-for-gliff/

#Scottish #literature #AliSmith

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170d

“Between her debut in 1984 – aged 58 – and her death in 2014, Owens published six short novels and two collections of stories. In contemporary reviews she was likened to Muriel Spark and Beryl Bainbridge: her books thrive on the friction between comedy and sadness.”

—John Self on the working-class genius of Agnes Owens (1926–2014)

https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/the-working-class-genius-of-agnes-owens

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #workingclass #workingclassfiction #workingclasswriters

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170d

Librarians at War

The origins of today’s vast intelligence apparatus can be traced, in part, to the forgotten efforts of librarians and archivists to gather information during World War II

by Kathy Peiss (from the archives)

https://www.americanheritage.com/librarians-war

Books in World War II at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/325

#Books #Literature

A typical bookplate used during the ALA Library War Service during World War I.

A WWI-era bookplate in dark tones showing a helmeted soldier carrying a rifle and an impossibly tall stack of books.A WWI-era bookplate in dark tones showing a helmeted soldier carrying a rifle and an impossibly tall stack of books. The text reads "War Service Library — Books are provided by the people of the United States through the American Library Association for the use of the soldiers and sailors."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_War_Service#/media/File:War_Service_Library_bookplate.jpg

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170d

Uncomfortable Truths – Voices of the Commonwealth
12 June, Waterstones Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow – free

Four leading poets from across the Commonwealth – Imtiaz Dharker, Peter MacKay, Nick Makoha & Fawzia Muradali Kane – celebrate its diverse voices & perspectives, but also read powerful work challenging uncomfortable truths & engage in active discussions.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/uncomfortable-truths-voices-of-the-commonwealth-tickets-1987490015137

#Scottish #literature #poetry #Commonwealth #identity

Edited 170d ago

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170d

CFP: Hogg’s Worlds Now
2–4 July 2027, University of Glasgow

The James Hogg Society invites paper proposals that engage with any aspect of Hogg’s life & writing & with the broader community of authors associated with Scottish Romanticism

Please submit a 250-word abstract by 31 December 2026

https://jameshoggblog.blogspot.com/2026/05/forthcoming-james-hogg-conference-call.html

#Scottish #literature #19thcentury #romanticism #CallforPapers #JamesHogg

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145d

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver…

—Don Paterson, “Waking with Russell”
Selected Poems (Faber, 2012)

A poem for Father’s Day

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571281800-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Father #FathersDay

Waking with Russell
by Don Paterson

Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again,
possessed him, till it would not fall or waver;
and I pitched back not my old hard-pressed grin
but his own smile, or one I’d rediscovered.
Dear son, I was mezzo del cammin
and the true path was as lost to me as ever
when you cut in front and lit it as you ran.
See how the true gift never leaves the giver:
returned and redelivered, it rolled on
until the smile poured through us like a river.
How fine, I thought, this waking amongst men!
I kissed your mouth and pledged myself forever.

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145d

Fade then, light; but longing never will.
Midsummer makes the west spectacular
and even gives its last glow a show
of reluctance, as if it had postponed
midnight…

—Edwin Morgan, “21 June”
Published in CATHURES (Carcanet, 2002)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857546170/cathures/

#Scottish #literature #midsummer #poem #poetry

Edwin Morgan
21 June

Fade then, light; but longing never will.
Midsummer makes the west spectacular
and even gives its last glow a show
of reluctance, as if it had postponed
midnight. But midnight is too faithful.
You're back among the black, the black,
you're down and fit to drown, to drown,
you're padding into nightmare town.
You haven't got a house, a bed-light,
there are no clocks or telephones out there,
you are on your own, you have a large panic
waiting to break through your chest, you are panting,
you count, as it arrives, each brimming pang.
What a clutch of sheets! What a parody of pain!

The longest day, the night is not so long.
You fling back the curtains, the morning sky
is like a meadow. What is it you want?
I don't know. You cannot walk there. No.
So what do you want? The morning, perhaps,
and then I want the day, another day.

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169d

Scottish Gaelic Magazines in the 20th Century
2 June, free online

Dr Petra Poncarová examines 20th-century Gaelic periodicals, with a spotlight on contributors & Gaelic learners coming from German-speaking countries – via JGU Mainz Scotland HUB

https://www.scotland.uni-mainz.de/reading-scotland/

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #magazines #periodicals #20thcentury

READING SCOTLAND
with Petra Poncarová

Scottish Gaelic Magazines in the 20th Century

Tuesday, 2nd June 2026
6.00–7.30 pm (German time) on MS Teams

www.scotland.uni-mainz.de

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145d

Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach,
mi fhèin is m’ athair,
is lìonadh sinn an eathar le
peilichean de rionnach, liutha,
is dheigheadh sinn timcheall a’ bhaile
gu gach nàbaidh gus am biodh na peilichean falamh…

—Iain MacRath, “Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach”
published in Don’t. Even. Ask. Too. Hot.: New Writing Scotland 42 (ASL, 2024)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws42/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #fathers #FathersDay

Iain MacRath
Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach

Dheigheadh sinn a dh’iasgach,
mi fhèin is m’ athair,
is lìonadh sinn an eathar le
peilichean de rionnach, liutha,
is dheigheadh sinn timcheall a’ bhaile
gu gach nàbaidh gus am biodh na peilichean falamh.
Chunnaic mi m’ athair an raoir,
ged a chaochail e o chionn fichead bliadhna.
Chunnaic mi air na naidheachdan e
seacaid-teasairginn timcheall air
is an eathar làn,
làn de dhaoine.

Iain MacRae
We’d go fishing

We’d go fishing,
me and my father,
and we’d fill the dinghy
with pails of mackerel, lythe,
and we’d go round the village
to each neighbour till each pail was empty.
I saw my father last night,
though he died some twenty years ago.
I saw him on the news
a safety jacket around him
and the dinghy full,
full of people.

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145d

the back-en turnt grey
the colourt wuids wis wae an wan
ye’d taen the auld auld road, man
an left the rosie leaf ahint…

—Brian Holton, “For Ma Faither”
1st Prize winner for Scots in the inaugural Tannahill Poetry Competition, 2017

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/for-ma-faither/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #fathers #FathersDay #Scots #Scotslanguage

For Ma Faither
Brian Holton

In Memoriam Cyril Stanley Holton

the back-en turnt grey
the colourt wuids wis wae an wan
ye’d taen the auld auld road, man
an left the rosie leaf ahint
the spring wis late o comin
nae heat, nae graith wis gien ti the hill
an aa the wells o christentie cudna slocken
the drouth at cam an checkt oor season then
nae cauldrife bed for you, man, reishlt wi the wund
ye tuik the simmer’s lang white road
whaur lichtsome hills is daft wi sang
an siller watter rummles doun the linn
the herd hed come ti lead ye in
to set ye on yir auld white road
the birselt hill abune ye, the sweit upon yir brou
rinnin doun the tropic road yir lane
A mind ye yet, ye chairmer, an mercy me
in ither airts oo’ll aiblins meet, afore lang gae –
a gairden mebbes, whaur ye’ll turn an fauld uis,
ma weill-luvit an ma absent dear
ma gowd wis turnt ti bress then
an aa ma joys wis turn ti leid
in the birselt wearie days o hairst-en
ye tuik the bitter road, the auld white road, an ran
the back-en wis grey as stane, man,
the colourt wuids wis pale an wan
ye tuik the auld auld road, man
an aa yir warkin days wis dune

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145d

Lying asleep walking
Last night I met my father
Who seemed pleased to see me.
He wanted to speak. I saw
His mouth saying something
But the dream had no sound…

—W.S. Graham, “To Alexander Graham”
published in Collected Poems 1942–1977 (Faber, 1979)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48732/to-alexander-graham

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #fathers #FathersDay

To Alexander Graham
by W. S. Graham

Lying asleep walking
Last night I met my father
Who seemed pleased to see me.
He wanted to speak. I saw
His mouth saying something
But the dream had no sound.

We were surrounded by
Laid-up paddle steamers
In The Old Quay in Greenock.
I smelt the tar and the ropes.

It seemed that I was standing
Beside the big iron cannon
The tugs used to tie up to
When I was a boy. I turned
To see Dad standing just
Across the causeway under
That one lamp they keep on.

He recognised me immediately.
I could see that. He was
The handsome, same age
With his good brows as when
He would take me on Sundays
Saying we’ll go for a walk.

Dad, what am I doing here?
What is it I am doing now?
Are you proud of me?
Going away, I knew
You wanted to tell me something.

You stopped and almost turned back
To say something. My father,
I try to be the best
In you you give me always.

Lying asleep turning
Round in the quay-lit dark
It was my father standing
As real as life. I smelt
The quay’s tar and the ropes.

I think he wanted to speak.
But the dream had no sound.
I think I must have loved him.

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