lizlochhead

21d

…fabulous film-noir stills of Central Station
of freezing fog silvering the chilled, stilled parks
of the glamorous past
where drops on a rainmate are sequins
in the lamplight, in the black-and-white…

—Liz Lochhead, “Some Old Photographs”
from A HANDSEL: New & Collected Poems (Birlinn, 2023)

Today, 19 August, is World Photography Day

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/a-handsel/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem #Glasgow #photography #photos #WorldPhotographyDay #LizLochhead

Some Old Photographs
Liz Lochhead

Weather evocative as scent

the romance of dark stormclouds
in big skies over the low wide river
of long shadows and longer shafts of light

of smoke
fabulous film-noir stills of Central Station
of freezing fog silvering the chilled, stilled parks
of the glamorous past
where drops on a rainmate are sequins
in the lamplight, in the black-and-white

your young, still-lovely mother laughs, the
hem of her sundress whipped up
by a wind on a beach
somewhere doon the watter
before you were even born

all the dads in hats
are making for Central at five past five
in the snow, in the rain, in the sudden what-a-scorcher,
in the smog, their
belted dark overcoats white-spattered by the starlings

starlings swarming
in that perfect and permanent cloud
above what was
never really this photograph
but always all the passing now
and noise and stink and smoky breath of George Square
wee boays, a duchess, bunting, there’s a
big launch on the Clyde
and that boat is yet to sail

ALT

Central Station, Glasgow 1960. © Newsquest (H&T) Glasgow Herald and Times. A black-and-white photo of the stairs leading to the concourse in Glasgow’s Central Station, 1960. Figures of men and women are silhouetted against the horizontal bars of the staircase. At the top, a crowd of people wait for trains. Advert hoardings for Capstan Cigarettes and Johnnie Walker whisky hang in the steamy, smoky air above the crowd.

ALT

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