poem

260d

"Give me a little less
with every dawn."

Marjorie Lotfi performs John Burnside's "Prayer" in a film directed by Savannah Acquah, from a new series from the ‪Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation & the Writers’ Mosaic

https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/prayer

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JohnBurnside

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19d

to hear the Gaelic ann an taigh-mòr
air a’ chrìch eadar dà shiorrachd
ann an Èirinn far am faighear taic
o gach comhairle gus na dìogan a ghlanadh,
na claisean a chàradh…

—Pàdraig MacAoidh, “Geographical Exclusions Apply”
published in With Their Best Clothes On: New Writing Scotland 36 (ASL, 2018)

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry

Pàdraig MacAoidh
GEOGRAPHICAL EXCLUSIONS APPLY

to hear the Gaelic ann an taigh-mòr
air a’ chrìch eadar dà shiorrachd
ann an Èirinn far am faighear taic
o gach comhairle gus na dìogan a ghlanadh,
na claisean a chàradh, ged nach robh e
idir gu leòr agus fios gun teagamh sam bith
gun robh an taigh a’ grodadh, nach bi
e fada son t-saoghail seo, leis gun robh e –
mar gach taigh-mòr eile – a’ tuiteam
às a chèile on mhullach, gun robh
na sglèatan a’ crochadh air adhar,
na cabair phreasach nas làine de thuill
na de dh’fhiodh ’s it was lovely to hear
the Gaelic aig solas dearg ann an Gleann
Iucha far an do stad car agus shlaighd
fear sios an uinneag agus leig e às –
gu slaodach – cnap cotain a bha stobte
sa bheul ann am beàrn far am b’ àbhaist
fiacail a bhith, an cotan air tionndadh
dearg gorm dubh agus air maistrich
le na duilleagan ’s an traillich ’s an uisge
ronnach ruadh a’ ruith sìos a’ chlais
sìos dhan it was lovely to hear the Gaelic
anns a’ chlò a’ chlò a’ chlò às am bi
fàileadh m’ eilein-sa ag èirigh gach trup
a bhios tu fàs teth agus fliuch aig an aon àm
mar gum b’ e comharra feise a bh’ ann
rud cho borb bèisteil ’s nach urrainn dhut
a chumail ri taobh do chraicinn, nad
achlaisean, eadar do shlèistean, gun iad a bhith
air an suathadh, air an sgròbadh a bhith dearg
’s dubh ’s geal ’s tu ag ràdh eadar fiaclan dùinte

an ceann a chèile Moire Moire Moire it was
lovely to hear the Gaelic aig àm dol fodha
na grèine, gus am bris an là, gu latha-luain,
aig mullach na creige ann an Gippsland
far an do shad an Sgitheanach
Alasdair Mac a’ Mhaolain tùsanaich
far an oir an dèidh peilearan
a chur nan casan mar gum b’ e plàigh
a bh’ annta ’s beathaichean leòinte
nach robh fiù ’s airidh air tròcair,
nach b’ annta ach troc it was lovely
to hear the Gaelic air an t-seann sgeir,
na glasan-làimhe a’ bìdeadh d’ abhbrannan
’s do chaoil-dhùirn agus an t-sàl
a’ suathadh d’ fheòla agus an reothart
a’ lìonadh gun dòchas agad – agus i
an àm a’ phreasaidh a-rithist an-còmhnaidh
mar a bha ’s mar a bhitheas – ach guth fireann
thar nan tonn a’ dùrdail it was lovely

Peter Mackay
GEOGRAPHICAL EXCLUSIONS APPLY

to hear the Gaelic in a big house
on the border between two counties
in Ireland where you could get help
from both councils for cleaning the gutters
repairing the rones, even though it was
never enough and there was no doubt
that the house was rotting, not long
for this world, since it was – like every other
big house – tearing itself apart
from the top down, and the slates
were hanging in air and the corrugating
roofbeams more full of holes than wood
and it was lovely to hear the Gaelic at a red
light in Glencoe where a car stopped and a man
wound down his window and dropped –
gently – a sop of cotton that had been
stoppering a hole in his mouth where once
there’d been a tooth, the cotton now turning
red blue black and swirling chewing
masticating with the leaves and butts
in the red rusted water running down the gutter
towards it was lovely to hear the Gaelic
in the tweed the tweed the tweed from which
the smell of my island rises each time
you get both hot and wet at the same time
as if it was a marker of sex, something so
barbaric and animal you could not keep it
beside your skin, in your armpits, between
your thighs without them being rubbed
and scratched red and black and white
while you say between teeth gritted together
Mary Mary Mary it was lovely to hear

the Gaelic at the setting of the sea, when the day
breaks, till the day of the moon, at the top
of the cliff in Gippsland where the Sgitheanach
Alasdair Mac a’ Mhaolain threw aborigines
over the edge, having shot them in the legs
as if they were a plague, or wounded
animals, that weren’t worthy of pity
that were nothing but brutes it was lovely
to hear the Gaelic on the ol’ tidal rock
the manacles biting into your ankles
and wrists and the brine of the rising
spring tide seasoning your flesh and
no hope left but – it being the time
of the press-gangs again, as usual,
as it was and shall be – a male voice
murmuring over the seas it was lovely

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17d

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift…

—Carol Ann Duffy, “Prayer”
from MEAN TIME (Picador, 2017; Anvil, 1993)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/carol-ann-duffy/mean-time/9781509852949

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #CarolAnnDuffy #womenwriters #prayer

Prayer
Carol Ann Duffy

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child’s name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio’s prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

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17d

Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded #OnThisDay, 8 February, 1587, on the orders of Elizabeth I of England – her first cousin once removed.

Consider the way she had to go,
Think of the hungry snare,
The net she herself had woven,
Aware or unaware…

—Marion Angus, “Alas! Poor Queen”
Published in TURN OF THE DAY (1931) – online via the National Library of Scotland

https://digital.nls.uk/works-by-selected-scottish-authors/archive/129159433?mode=fullsize

#Scottish #literature #history #poem #poetry #MaryQueenofScots #womenwriters #20thcentury

Alas! Poor Queen
Marion Angus

She was skilled in music and the dance
And the old arts of love
At the court of the poisoned rose
And the perfumed glove,
And gave her beautiful hand
To the pale Dauphin
A triple crown to win—
And she loved little dogs
And parrots
And red-legged partridges
And the golden fishes of the Due de Guise
And a pigeon with a blue ruff
She had from Monsieur d’Elboeuf.

Master John Knox was no friend to her ;
She spoke him soft and kind,
Her honeyed words were Satan’s lure
The unwary soul to bind.
“Good sir, doth a lissome shape
And a comely face
Offend your God His Grace
Whose Wisdom maketh these
Golden fishes of the Due de Guise?”

She rode through Liddesdale with a song ;
“Ye streams sae wondrous strang,
Oh, mak’ me a wrack as I come back
But spare me as I gang.”
While a hill-bird cried and cried
Like a spirit lost
By the grey storm-wind tost.

Consider the way she had to go,
Think of the hungry snare,
The net she herself had woven,
Aware or unaware,

Of the dancing feet grown still,
The blinded eyes.—
Queens should be cold and wise,
And she loved little things,
Parrots
And red-legged partridges
And the golden fishes of the Due de Guise
And the pigeon with the blue ruff
She had from Monsieur d’Elboeuf.

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18d

You might forget the exact sound of her voice
or how her face looked when sleeping.
You might forget the sound of her quiet weeping
curled into the shape of a half moon…

—Jackie Kay, “Darling”
published in DARLING (Bloodaxe, 2007)

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/darling-877

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JackieKay #grief #death

Darling
by Jackie Kay

You might forget the exact sound of her voice
or how her face looked when sleeping.
You might forget the sound of her quiet weeping
curled into the shape of a half moon,

when smaller than her self, she seemed already to be leaving
before she left, when the blossom was on the trees
and the sun was out, and all seemed good in the world.
I held her hand and sang a song from when I was a girl –

Heel y’ho boys, let her go boys –
and when I stopped singing she had slipped away,
already a slip of a girl again, skipping off,
her heart light, her face almost smiling.

And what I didn’t know or couldn’t say then
was that she hadn’t really gone.
The dead don’t go till you do, loved ones.
The dead are still here holding our hands.

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16d

Let us remember
the stillborn: how they

cede their places here
with such good grace

that no one ever
speaks of them

again…

—John Burnside, “A Footnote to Colossians”
published in RUIN, BLOSSOM (Penguin, 2024)

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/456120/ruin-blossom-by-burnside-john/9781529909258

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #JohnBurnside

John Burnside
A Footnote to Colossians

For ye are dead, and your life is hid
Colossians 3:3

Let us remember
the stillborn: how they

cede their places here
with such good grace

that no one ever
speaks of them

again.
In school,

we placed them, carefully,
in Limbo,

deep in the folds of smoke
and snowfall, where

their names would never
find them:

pagan, now,
and immaterial,

like phantoms,
or that

boy I sometimes saw
in polaroids,

the one they said
was me.

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16d

The swine hangs on,
The swine hangs on to power,
The townsfolk mutter round the tower…

—Alan Jackson, “The Swine”
published in Salutations: Collected Poems 1960–1989 (Polygon, 1990)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/swine/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

The Swine
Alan Jackson

The swine hangs on,
The swine hangs on to power,
The townsfolk mutter round the tower:

“Roast him, toast him,
Thin his blood.
Try fire first,
Then try flood.

Char the timbers,
Crack the stone.
Make him marrow
In a splintered bone.

Then he’ll tumble,
Our hot meat.
Then we hack him.
Then we eat.”

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15d

I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
Its silver paper crinkled and edged with rust…

—Norman MacCaig, “Climbing Suilven”
from BETWEEN MOUNTAIN AND SEA: Poems From Assynt (Birlinn, 2018)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/between-mountain-and-sea/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #climbing #hillwalking #Suilven #Sutherland #20thcentury #NormanMacCaig

Norman MacCaig
Climbing Suilven

I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
Its silver paper crinkled and edged with rust.
My lungs say No;
But down and down this treadmill hill must go.

Parishes dwindle. But my parish is
This stone, that tuft, this stone
And the cramped quarters of my flesh and bone.
I claw that tall horizon down to this;
And suddenly
My shadow jumps huge miles away from me.

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13d

Gave yet another lecture. God, I’m boring.
Said all the same old things I’ve said before
With touches of “however-ing” and “therefore-ing”.
Dear God, it’s true, I’m just an ancient bore…

—Douglas Dunn, “Thursday”
published in THE NOISE OF A FLY (Faber, 2019)

https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571333820-the-noise-of-a-fly/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #academia

Thursday
Douglas Dunn

Gave yet another lecture. God, I’m boring.
Said all the same old things I’ve said before
With touches of “however-ing” and “therefore-ing”.
Dear God, it’s true, I’m just an ancient bore.

If only I could tap my old exuberance,
High spirits that I plied in days before,
Then maybe I would find a kind deliverance
From the curse of being such a bloody bore.

For I’m the model of a modern academic.
I’m absolutely super at ennui.
I’m just stunning when it comes to a polemic,
And boredom’s snoredom’s what I guarantee.

I’m putting extra pennies in my pension.
Retirement beckons and the garden calls,
That beautiful, botanical dimension
Where boiler-suited pensioners scratch their balls.

But I’ve a problem. It’s called “work ethic”, so
I’ll slog on with the daily, dreary toil.
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, what a lousy way to go,
To work all day then burn the midnight oil.

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13d

I met a young man in a floppy hat
who stopped and smiled; he too had charm.
“My finches,” he said, “you are watching my finches.”

—Edwin Morgan, “Darwin in the Galapagos (1835 AD)”
published in A BOOK OF LIVES (Carcanet, 2007)

Charles Darwin was born #OnThisDay, 12 February, 1809

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549188/a-book-of-lives/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #EdwinMorgan #Darwin #CharlesDarwin #DarwinDay #evolution

Edwin Morgan
Darwin in the Galapagos (1835 AD)

It was a cool day for the equator
as I clambered whistling over the clinker.
Clouds had brought a shower across the shore.
Grey black scoured and pitted rocks
glistened, and so did an iguana
eyeing me lazily with its wet crest bristling.
I saw the drag-marks of a giant tortoise –
what a dogged message thrusting into the thicket!
And the air was bright with birds, well, bright and dark –
green, brown, yellow – little birds, finches
flirting their few inches, drenching the freshness
with a spray of chatter and chirm, with a charm
peculiar to these islands, these Incantadas

I met a young man in a floppy hat
who stopped and smiled; he too had charm.
“My finches,” he said, “you are watching my finches.”
We sat on an old stump, I cherish the moment.
A man both ingenuous and ingenious,
a genius indeed, enthusiastic, shy,
well no, not really shy, but modest,
that was a type I could talk to for ever.

“These finches – all different,” he said.
“They have become separate species, and why is that?
They had some ancestor in Ecuador
but here their beaks have changed to match their food –
small seeds, big seeds, nectar, and do you know
there is one that makes a tool of cactus spines
to ferret grubs from tree-cracks? Oh
I can hardly sleep for excitement!
Nothing is immutable, life changes, we evolve.
Process is gorgeous, is it not!
Process is progress, don‘t you see!”

He taps my arm, his eyes shine. I agree.
Time breaks in great waves as we speak.
And look, a finch on the back of a tortoise
as if it had been listening
lifts its beak and begins a singing
so piercing it gives no end to that beginning.

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321d

Rare, oh it's so rare
To meet somebody
Able to understand you
So deeply that
You never feel alone.

-Debora Radice

❤️

@poetry

#readersdon #writersdon #bookstodon #poetry #poem #poesia #poems #poesie #thoughts #pensieri #thought #pensiero #poemoftheday #thoughtoftheday #poesiadelgiorno #pensierodelgiorno

Edited 321d ago

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207d

Beyond ruined houses and a past
eroded by salt and marram grass
stretch miles of sand dunes
where as kids we hurled ourselves
into space …

—Eleanor Livingstone, “Breathless”
from In the Event of Fire: New Writing Scotland 27 (ASLS, 2009)

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Eleanor Livingstone
BREATHLESS

Beyond ruined houses and a past
eroded by salt and marram grass
stretch miles of sand dunes
where as kids we hurled ourselves
into space, legs and rebel cries
suspended in the air, landing

spread-eagled in cotton shorts
and bare legs, winded but alive.

On August evenings years later
under cover of dark we returned
stumbling in and out of rabbit holes
to find the sand sun-warmed, soft
and far enough removed for us
to lie as still and silent as the sea

but for fingers finding buttons
and the racket of our hearts.

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10d

The sun’s been tint for weeks. Deid maybe.
Likely drooned. Water’s aaplace, teemin doon
gutters and branders, rinnin aff the slates,
floodin pavements. Fowk near droon…

—Ken Morrice, “Foo Mony Cubits?”
published in Selected Poems (Keith Murray, 1991)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/foo-mony-cubits/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #Aberdeenshire #rain

Foo Mony Cubits?
Ken Morrice

The sun’s been tint for weeks. Deid maybe.
Likely drooned. Water’s aaplace, teemin doon
gutters and branders, rinnin aff the slates,
floodin pavements. Fowk near droon

waitin for the bus. Fit an onding!
Weet skites up yer troosers, drips doon yer sark.
Fa wis it prayed for rain? Lord, eneuch’s eneuch.
Caa back the sun, or help’s build an ark!

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11d

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love…

—Carol Ann Duffy, “Valentine”
published in A Red Rose or a Satin Heart: An Anthology of Scottish Love Poems, @canongatebooks 2010
💝

#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #poem #poetry #womenwriters #lovepoem #CarolAnnDuffy

Valentine
Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

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11d

When you go,
if you go,
and I should want to die,
there’s nothing I’d be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms…

—Edwin Morgan, “When You Go”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784109967

#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM #poem #poetry #Valentine #lovepoem #lovepoetry #EdwinMorgan

When you go
Edwin Morgan

When you go,
if you go,
and I should want to die,
there's nothing I’d be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms
in a trust so gentle
I let the darkening room
drink up the evening, till
rest, or the new rain
lightly roused you awake.
I asked if you heard the rain in your dream
and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.

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11d

O dastram, dastram,
Dastram Mòrag!
Rìbhinn bhuidh’, bhasdalach,
Leac-ruiteach ròsach…

—Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, bho “Moladh Mòrag”
published in DASTRAM/DELIRIUM: Selected Poems of Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, Versions by Taylor Strickland (Broken Sleep Books, 2023)

https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/taylor-strickland-dastram-delirium

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #ValentinesDay #poem #poetry #18thcentury #love #lovepoem #lovepoetry

bho Moladh Mòraig
Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair

O dastram, dastram,
Dastram Mòrag!
Rìbhinn bhuidh’, bhasdalach,
Leac-ruiteach ròsach;
A gruaidhean air lasadh
Mar an lasair-chlach dhathte,
’S a deud mar a’ sneachda,
Cruinn-shnaighte ’n dlùth òrdugh;
Ri Venus cho tlachdmhor
An taitneachdainn fheòlmhor,
Ri Dido cho maiseach,
Cho snasmhor ’s cho còrr rith’;
’S e thionnsgain dhomh caitheamh
’S a lùghdaich mo ràithean,
A’ bhallag ghrinn laghach
Chuir na gathan sa ’m fheòil-sa.

from Praised be Morag
translated by Taylor Strickland

Delirium! Delirium
from her, a girl blonde,
lurid: how she snuffs out
her own flint-spark glow,
and in one white bite
hewn from snow.
As sex and excess,
as body and beauty,
so Dido, so Venus,
so Morag ravishes
my seasons,
my genius
spent.
A girl with sharp agency
can pierce the heart
clean through.

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11d

O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!

—James Hogg (1770–1835), “Love is like a dizziness” 💝

#Scottish #literature #poetry #poem #ValentinesDay #Valentine #18thcentury #19thcentury #humour

Love is like a dizziness
James Hogg

I lately lived in quiet ease,
An’ ne’er wished to marry, O!
But when I saw my Peggy’s face,
I felt a sad quandary, O!
Though wild as ony Athol deer,
She has trepann’d me fairly, O!
Her cherry cheeks an’ een sae clear
Torment me late an’ early, O!

O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!

To tell my feats this single week
Wad mak a daft-like diary, O!
I drave my cart out owre a dike,
My horses in a miry, O!
I wear my stockings white an’ blue,
My love’s sae fierce an’ fiery, O!
I drill the land that I should pleugh,
An’ pleugh the drills entirely, O!

Chorus

Ae morning, by the dawn o’ day,
I rase to theek the stable, O!
I cuist my coat, an’ plied away
As fast as I was able, O!
I wrought that morning out an’ out,
As I’d been redding fire, O!
When I had done an’ look’d about,
Gudefaith, it was the byre, O!

Chorus

Her wily glance I’ll ne’er forget,
The dear, the lovely blinkin’ o’t
Has pierced me through an’ through the heart,
An’ plagues me wi’ the prinkling o’t.
I tried to sing, I tried to pray,
I tried to drown’t wi’ drinkin’ o’t,
I tried wi’ sport to drive’t away,
But ne’er can sleep for thinkin’ o’t.

Chorus

Nae man can tell what pains I prove,
Or how severe my pliskie, O!
I swear I’m sairer drunk wi’ love
Than ever I was wi’ whisky, O!
For love has raked me fore an’ aft,
I scarce can lift a leggie, O!
I first grew dizzy, then gaed daft,
An’ soon I’ll dee for Peggy, O!

Chorus

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11d

Here is a letter
come across the ocean
over the back of a world
curved like a whale…

—Hugh McMillan, “Letter”
published in THE OTHER CREATURES IN THE WOOD (Mariscat, 2014)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/letter/

#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #poem #poetry #lovepoem #lovepoetry #Valentine

Letter
Hugh McMillan

Here is a letter
come across the ocean
over the back of a world
curved like a whale.
I unwrap it, like tissue,
and sentences spill out,
as though the seal on a jar has broken,
coils of cornflower blue
on paper thin as shell.

I saw a sailor’s valentine once
in a museum in Nantucket Sound,
a mosaic of broken scallop
glued in a compass rose.
‘Writ from the heart’ it said.
Words come best like that:
in ink or blood,
when the source is from a major vein.

I read, and understand this much:
if ink sees off time and miles, then so must love.

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11d

Like the Idalian queene,
Her haire about her eyne,
With necke and brests ripe apples to be seene,
At first glance of the morne
In Cyprus gardens gathering those faire flowrs
Which of her bloud were borne…

—William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649), “Like the Idalian queene”

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/jacobean-parnassus/

#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #Valentine #17thcentury #earlymodern #poem #poetry #lovepoem #lovepoetry

“Like the Idalian queene”
by William Drummond of Hawthornden

Like the Idalian queene,
Her haire about her eyne,
With necke and brests ripe apples to be seene,
At first glance of the morne
In Cyprus gardens gathering those faire flowrs
Which of her bloud were borne,
I saw, but fainting saw, my paramours.
The Graces naked danc’d about the place,
The winds and trees, amaz’d,
With silence on her gaz’d,
The flowrs did smile, like those upon her face;
And as their aspine stalkes those fingers band,
That shee might read my case
A hyacinth I wisht mee in her hand.

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11d

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine…

—Edwin Morgan, “Strawberries”🍓
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784109967

#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #poem #poetry #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM #Valentine #lovepoem #lovepoetry #EdwinMorgan #20thcentury

Strawberries
Edwin Morgan

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates

laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

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11d

Whether the weather be dreich or fair, my luve,
if guid times greet us, or we hae tae face the worst,
ahint and afore whit will happen tae us…

—Jackie Kay, “A Lang Promise”
published in BANTAM (Picador, 2017)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/jackie-kay/bantam/9781509887927

#Scottish #literature #ValentinesDay #Valentine #poem #poetry #LGBTQ #LGBTQplusHM #lovepoem #lovepoetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #womenwriters #JackieKay

A Lang Promise
Jackie Kay

Whether the weather be dreich or fair, my luve,
if guid times greet us, or we hae tae face the worst,
ahint and afore whit will happen tae us:
blind in the present, eyes open to the furore,
unkempt or perjink, suddenly puir or poorly,
peely-wally or in fine fettle, beld or frosty,
calm as a ghoul or in a feery-farry,
in dork December or in springy spring weather,
doon by the Barrows, or on the Champs-Élysées,
at midnight, first licht, whether the mune
be roond or crescent, and yer o' soond mind
or absent, I'll tak your trusty haun
and lead you over the haw – hame, ma darlin.
I’ll carry ma lantern, and daur defend ye agin ony foe;
and whilst there is breath in me, I'll blaw it intae ye.
Fir ye are ma true luve, the bonnie face I see;
nichts I fall intae slumber, it’s ye swimming up
in all yer guidness and blitheness, yer passion.
You’ll be mine, noo, an’ till the end o’ time,
ma bonnie lassie, I’ll tak the full guid o’ ye
and gie it back, and gie it back tae ye:
a furst kiss, a lang promise, time’s gowden ring.

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285d

“Multitudes” is a #haiku from Library on Fire, my 3rd volume of #poetry available at https://www.nihtgengapress.com/product/library-on-fire

#books #indie #poem

Multitudes
I must remember
Within my darkness resides
Multitudes of stars

Edited 285d ago

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270d

Thae laddies in the Celtic shirts,
a baker’s dozen
lumbering all the way to the summit cairn
the hot last Saturday of May
as larks trilled
and the loch-side braes released their midgies…

—Kathleen Jamie, “Ben Lomond”
published in THE BONNIEST COMPANIE (Picador, 2015)

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kathleen-jamie/the-bonniest-companie/9781509801718

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

Ben Lomond
Kathleen Jamie

Thae laddies in the Celtic shirts,
a baker’s dozen
lumbering all the way to the summit cairn
the hot last Saturday of May
as larks trilled
and the loch-side braes released their midgies …

Well, up at the raven-haunted trig-point
(as the sun shone bright o’er the whole lower Clyde)
they unfurled a banner,
and triumphant-sombre, ranked themselves behind it
for the photies,
‘R.I.P.’ it read, then the name of a wee boy

they’ll never meet again. Ach,
would the wean were playing fit-ba
on some bonny banks somewhere …

There’s no accounting for it, is there?
I mean the low road, and the high.

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269d

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming…

—Niall Campbell, “The Rainmaker”
published in POETRY (July/August 2020)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/153822/the-rainmaker

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #rain

The Rainmaker
by Niall Campbell

We needed it—and he stood there,
feet on the dry porch, saying rain,
cloud and skyful, the sound of drumming;

the bath trough in the garden listened,
white and bone dry, as he described
a bright wash across the dust fields,

the surest downpour, the flushed skin,
my soaked shirt, heavy as a bell.
Then off he went to the scorched fields,

humming, and weighing what we paid.
What did he say: prayer is moisture;
hope is a well—I didn’t care,

I wanted just the words from him—
what I couldn’t dare say—not there
beneath that sun, that blur of fire-sky.

My thoughts all thoughts of water, I
spun my head round—to hear the spill
of the word rain across the boards,

and nothing grew dark, nothing fell—
but something fell, and the ground took,
and something wild as garlic grew.

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269d

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love is the wolf that guards the gate.
Love is the food of music, art, poetry. It fills us and fuels us and fires us to create.
Love is terror. Love is sweat. Love is bashed pillow, crumpled sheet, unenviable fate…

—Edwin Morgan, “Love”
A poem for Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️
published in A BOOK OF LIVES (Carcanet, 2011)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549188/a-book-of-lives/

#Scottish #literature #EdwinMorgan #poem #poetry #love #lovepoem #loveislove #Pride #PrideMonth #PrideMonth2025

Love
by Edwin Morgan

Love rules. Love laughs. Love marches. Love is the wolf that guards the gate.
Love is the food of music, art, poetry. It fills us and fuels us and fires us to create.
Love is terror. Love is sweat. Love is bashed pillow, crumpled sheet, unenviable fate.
Love is the honour that kills and saves and nothing will ever let that high ambiguity abate.
Love is the crushed ice that tingles and shivers and clinks fidgin-fain for the sugar-drenched absinthe to fall on it and alter its state.
With love you send a probe
So far from the globe
No one can name the shoals the voids the belts the zones the drags the flares it signals all to leave all and to navigate.

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