Eggplant.place

173d

Poets need not be garlanded;
the poet’s head
should be innocent of the leaves of the sweet bay tree,
twisted. All honour goes to poetry…

—Liz Lochhead, “Poets Need Not”
published in A HANDSEL: New & Collected Poems (Birlinn, 2023)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #WorldPoetryDay

Poets need not
Liz Lochhead

Poets need not be garlanded;
the poet’s head
should be innocent of the leaves of the sweet bay tree,
twisted. All honour goes to poetry.

And poets need no laurels. Why be lauded
for the love of trying to nail the disembodied
image with that one plain word to make it palpable;
for listening in to silence for the rhythm capable
of carrying the thought that’s not thought yet?
The pursuit’s its own reward. So you have to let
the poem come to voice by footering
late in the dark at home, by muttering
syllables of scribbled lines – or what might
be lines, eventually, if you can get it right.

And this, perhaps, in public? The daytime train,
the biro, the back of an envelope, and again
the fun of the wildgoose chase
that goes beyond all this fuss.

Inspiration? Bell rings, penny drops,
the light-bulb goes on and tops
the not-good-enough idea that went before?
No, that’s not how it goes. You write, you score
it out, you write it in again the same
but somehow with a different stress. This is a game
you very seldom win
and most of your efforts end up in the bin.

ALT

There’s one hunched and gloomy
heron haunts that nearby stretch of River Kelvin
and it wouldn’t if there were no fish.
If it never in all that greyness passing caught a flash,
a gleam of something, made that quick stab.
That’s how a poem is after a long nothingness, you grab
at that anything and this is food to you.
It comes through, as leaves do.

All praise to poetry, the way it has
of attaching itself to a familiar phrase
in a new way, insisting it be heard and seen.
Poets need no laurels, surely?
their poems, when they can make them happen – even rarely –
crown them with green.

ALT

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183d

A filth of leaves, she said, a froth, she said
Of sudsy flowers, and there’s your mawkish Spring.
Oh, barebone tree, what has it done to you?
Black field, you’re gone but for remembering…

—Norman MacCaig, “Green stain”
published in THE POEMS OF NORMAN MacCAIG (Birlinn, 2009)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/the-poems-of-norman-maccaig/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NormanMacCaig #20thcentury #Spring

Green stain
Norman MacCaig

A filth of leaves, she said, a froth, she said
Of sudsy flowers, and there’s your mawkish Spring.
Oh, barebone tree, what has it done to you?
Black field, you’re gone but for remembering.

I keep my winter where my heart should be.
– I’d rather bear it in its blackest moods
Than see those frilly leaves and blossoms make
A haberdashery of wholesome woods.

A mish-mash green, a sickly groping, such
A fumbling into light! How could they surpass
The icy shapes of darling winter hidden
In luckless trees and ill-starred meadow grass?

ALT

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182d

In limbo, on a still March day, the streets
are gritty and the sun papered over
and the great-tits in bare trees are keening
Weegie Weegie Weegie…

—Carol McKay, “Keening”
published in Poetry Scotland 102 (Autumn 2021)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Spring #March

Keening
Carol McKay

In limbo, on a still March day, the streets
are gritty and the sun papered over
and the great-tits in bare trees are keening
Weegie Weegie Weegie.

A man is blocking a hole in the soffit
under the dentist’s roof where the jackdaws
last year raised their chicks.
But he might not know.

My thoughts are moths. They rise up, powdery grey,
and fly off, leaving dusty residue.
In this isolation, far from my chicks,
I don’t know where I am, or how, or who.

Above my head a great gull ululates.
I lean into this old stone wall with its
sugaring of mica and its silvery trails
and my chest and throat spasm soundless in our unifying loss.

Then jackdaws, black against wallpaper cloud,
stratify into six pairs, giddy with love,
in tune with spring’s ever-renewing surge,
and I centre. Ground.

ALT

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172d

You’d know her house by the drawn blinds –
by the cormorants pitched on the boundary wall,
the black crosses of their wings hung out to dry…

—Robin Robertson, “At Roane Head”
in the London Review of Books, 14 August 2008

Today, 22 March, is International Seal Day 🦭

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n16/robin-robertson/at-roane-head

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #folklore #seal #seals #selkie #InternationalSealDay

At Roane Head
Robin Robertson

for John Burnside

You’d know her house by the drawn blinds –
by the cormorants pitched on the boundary wall,
the black crosses of their wings hung out to dry.
You’d tell it by the quicken and the pine that hid it
from the sea and from the brief light of the sun,
and by Aonghas the collie, lying at the door
where he died: a rack of bones like a sprung trap.

A fork of barnacle geese came over, with that slow
squeak of rusty saws. The bitter sea’s complaining pull
and roll; a whicker of pigeons, lifting in the wood.

She’d had four sons, I knew that well enough,
and each one wrong. All born blind, they say,
slack-jawed and simple, web-footed,
rickety as sticks. Beautiful faces, I’m told,
though blank as air.
Someone saw them once, outside, hirpling
down to the shore, chittering like rats,
and said they were fine swimmers,
but I would have guessed at that.

Her husband left her: said
they couldn’t be his, they were more
fish than human;
he said they were beglamoured,
and searched their skin for the showing marks.

ALT

For years she tended each difficult flame:
their tight, flickering bodies.
Each night she closed
the scales of their eyes to smoor the fire.

Until he came again,
that last time,
thick with drink, saying
he’d had enough of this,
all this witchery,
and made them stand
in a row by their beds,
twitching. Their hands
flapped; herring-eyes
rolled in their heads.
He went along the line
relaxing them
one after another
with a small knife.

They say she goes out every night to lay
blankets on the graves to keep them warm.
It would put the heart across you, all that grief.

There was an otter worrying in the leaves, a heron
loping slow over the water when I came
at scraich of day, back to her door.

She’d hung four stones in a necklace, wore
four rings on the hand that led me past the room
with four small candles burning
which she called ‘the room of rain’.
Milky smoke poured up from the grate
like a waterfall in reverse
and she said my name,
and it was the only thing
and the last thing that she said.

She gave me a skylark’s egg in a bed of frost;
gave me twists of my four sons’ hair; gave me
her husband’s head in a wooden box.
Then she gave me the sealskin, and I put it on.

ALT

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172d

My son has birds in his head.

I know them now. I catch
the pitch of their calls, their shrill
cacophonies, their chitterings, their coos…

—“Daedalus”, by Alastair Reid (1926–2014) – born 100 years ago #OTD, 22 March
published in WEATHERING, @canongatebooks 1978

1/4

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Daedalus
Alastair Reid

My son has birds in his head.

I know them now. I catch
the pitch of their calls, their shrill
cacophonies, their chitterings, their coos.
They hover behind his eyes and come to rest
on a branch, on a book, grow still,
claws curled, wings furled.
His is a bird world.

I learn the flutter of his moods,
his moments of swoop and soar.
From the ground I feel him try
the limits of the air –
sudden lift, sudden terror –
and move in time to cradle
his quivering, feathered fear.

At evening, in the tower,
I see him to sleep and see
the hooding-over of eyes,
the slow folding of wings.
I wake to his morning twitterings,
to the croomb of his becoming.

He chooses his selves – wren, hawk,
swallow or owl – to explore
the trees and rooftops of his heady wishing.
Tomtit, birdwit.
Am I to call him down, to give him
a grounding, teach him gravity?
Gently, gently.
Time tells us what we weigh, and soon enough
his feet will reach the ground.
Age, like a cage, will enclose him.
So the wise men said.

My son has birds in his head.

ALT

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172d

“I am a man upon the land,
I am a selkie in the sea,
And when I’m far and far frae land
My hame is in the Sule Skerry”

—The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry (traditional)

22 March is #InternationalSealDay 🦭

🎨: Vernon Hill, “The Great Sealchie of Sule Skerrie”, in Ballads Weird & Wonderful (1912)

#Scottish #literature #folksong #folklore #selkie #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #seal #seals

The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry
Traditional

An earthly nourris sits and sings
And aye she sings, “Ba lilly wean,
Little ken I my bairnie’s faither
Far less the land that he bides in.”

And up come he to her bed fit,
And a grumlie guest I’m sure was he,
Saying, “Here am I, thy bairnie’s faither
Although I may not comely be.

“I am a man upon the land,
I am a selkie in the sea,
And when I’m far and far frae land
My hame is in the Sule Skerry.”

Then he has taen a purse of gold
And he has set it on her knee,
Saying, “Gie to me, my ain wee son,
And you accept your nourris fee.

“It shall come to pass on a summer’s day
When the sun shines bricht on every stane
That I will tak my ain wee son
And learn him how to swim the faem.

“And you will marry a proud gunner,
And a richt good gunner I’m sure he’ll be,
And wi the first shot that e’er he fires
He’ll kill baith my bonnie son and me.”

ALT

A monochrome illustration, full of soft, subtle shading. A young woman cradles a baby at her breast. She looks over her shoulder towards a strange, splay-legged figure, bearded, with a drooping moustache and small, staring, inhuman eyes. He reaches out his right hand, offering the woman a small sack of coins. A small crucifix hangs on a post behind the two figures.

ALT

Edited 172d ago

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181d

When you were people
We could have loved you,
Found out your names
And brought you presents…

—AC Jacobs, “Poem for Innocent Victims of War”
Published in NAMELESS COUNTRY: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2018)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784106751/nameless-country/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #WarPoetry

Poem for Innocent Victims of War
A. C. Jacobs

You did not die for me
Or love or desperation.
No-one chipped your names
On plaques on peaceful blocks of stone.
You are just the useless dead
Who mock our daily sin of passion,
Climb through our heads in cold, slow silence.

When you were people
We could have loved you,
Found out your names
And brought you presents.
We could have walked around with your response.

Or even if you chose to die
We might have understood your longing
And written down your utmost fear.

Now, though, you have got beyond our feelings,
And we can never almost follow
To learn your last shared and perfect secret.

ALT

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180d

When proof of Einstein’s Glaswegian birth
First hit the media everything else was dropped…

—Robert Crawford, “Alba Einstein” – from Selected Poems (Cape, 2005)

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was born #OTD, 14 March. In Glasgow.

Listen to Robert Crawford read “Alba Einstein” on The Poetry Archive:

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/alba-einstein/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Einstein #FamousScots #Glasgow

Alba Einsten
Robert Crawford

When proof of Einstein’s Glaswegian birth
First hit the media everything else was dropped:
Logie Baird, Dundee painters, David Hume – all
Got the big E. Physics documentaries
Became peak-viewing; Scots publishers hurled awa
MacDiarmid like an overbaked potato, and swooped
On the memorabilia: Einstein Used My Fruitshop,
Einstein in Old Postcards, Einstein's Bearsden Relatives.
Hot on their heels came the A. E. Fun Park,
Quantum Court, Glen Einstein Highland Malt.
Glasgow was booming. Scotland rose to its feet
At Albert Suppers where The Toast to the General Theory
Was given by footballers, panto-dames, or restaurateurs.
In the US an ageing lab-technician recorded
How the Great Man when excited showed a telltale glottal stop.
He'd loved fiddlers’ rallies. His favourite sport was curling.
Thanks to this, Scottish business expanded
Endlessly. His head grew toby-jug-shaped,
Ideal for keyrings. He'd always worn brogues.
Ate bannocks in exile. As a wee boy he’d read The Beano.
His name brought new energy: our culture was solidly based
On pride in our hero, The Universal Scot.

ALT

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170d

As I came over the Harden hill
A whaup on the moor was whistling shrill
In his pride to be first recorder
Of new life stirred in the sleeping ling
Of laughter and love and song—and Spring—
And the first blue day on the Border.

—Will H. Ogilvie, “The First Blue Day on the Border”
from The Border Poems of Will H. Ogilvie (John Murray Hood, 1959)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/first-blue-day-border/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #poem #poetry #Spring

The First Blue Day on the Border
Will H. Ogilvie

As I came over the Harden hill
A whaup on the moor was whistling shrill
In his pride to be first recorder
Of new life stirred in the sleeping ling,
Of laughter and love and song—and Spring—
And the first blue day on the Border.

As I came down on the Borthwick side
The thorn stood white as a waiting bride
And the willow was leaning toward her;
The song of the river was sweet and loud,
The sky had never a single cloud
On the first blue day on the Border.

The ash was jewelled with buds of jet,
The crimson tufts on the larch were set
To be lit when the gods gave order;
Over the elm was a ruby sheen
Where the sunlight glittered the boughs between
On the first blue day on the Border.

ALT

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168d

I’m out here now
on the roof. Look!
I had to get nearer the sky,
For the city was too full of rooms
And I can’t be content with a window…

—Margaret Tait, “A Poem for a Morning”
published in Margaret Tait: poems, stories & writings (Carcanet, 2012)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800173798/poems-stories-and-writings/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #womenwriters #Orkney

A Poem for a Morning
Margaret Tait

I’m out here now
on the roof. Look!
I had to get nearer the sky,
For the city was too full of rooms
And I can’t be content with a window.

It’s too small a thing to accept the ready-made frame.
We builders must keep making our own cities.
Oh, please
Don’t fell the trees
For your city, because I need them for mine.

ALT

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167d

I wad ha’e gi’en him my lips tae kiss,
Had I been his, had I been his…

—“Mary’s Song”, by Marion Angus (1865–1946) – born #OTD, 27 March
published in THE TINKER’S ROAD and Other Verses (1924)

“She has an authentic voice straight out of the ballad tradition, an eerie shimmer to her best poems”
—Kathleen Jamie

https://digital.nls.uk/works-by-selected-scottish-authors/archive/129188342#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=12&xywh=-880%2C-256%2C3153%2C2337

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #womenwriters #Scots #Scotslanguage

Mary’s Song
Marion Angus

I wad ha’e gi’en him my lips tae kiss,
Had I been his, had I been his;
Barley breid and elder wine,
Had I been his as he is mine.

The wanderin’ bee it seeks the rose;
Tae the lochan’s bosom the burnie goes;
The grey bird cries at evenin’s fa’,
“My luve, my fair one, come awa’.”

My beloved sall ha’e this he’rt tae break,
Reid, reid wine and the barley cake,
A he’rt tae break, and a mou’ tae kiss,
Tho’ he be nae mine, as I am his.

ALT

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166d

There are some stones that open in the night like flowers
Down in the red graveyard where Bessie haunts her lovers…

—Jackie Kay, “The Red Graveyard”
published in OTHER LOVERS (Bloodaxe, 1993)

Today, 28 March, is International Women in Music Day

https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/jackie-kay

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #music #song #singing #BessieSmith #InternationalWomenInMusicDay

The Red Graveyard
Jackie Kay

There are some stones that open in the night like flowers
Down in the red graveyard where Bessie haunts her lovers.
There are stones that shake and weep in the heart of night
Down in the red graveyard where Bessie haunts her lovers.

Why do I remember the blues?
I am five or six or seven in the back garden;
the window is wide open;
her voice is slow motion through the heavy summer air.
Jelly roll. Kitchen man. Sausage roll. Frying pan.

Inside the house where I used to be myself,
her voice claims the rooms. In the best room even,
something has changed the shape of my silence.
Why do I remember her voice and not my own mother’s?
Why do I remember the blues?

My mother’s voice. What was it like?
A flat stone for skitting. An old rock.
Long long grass. Asphalt. Wind. Hail.
Cotton. Linen. Salt. Treacle.
I think it was a peach.
I heard it down to the ribbed stone.

ALT

I am coming down the stairs in my father’s house.
I am five or six or seven. There is fat thick wallpaper
I always caress, bumping flower into flower.
She is singing. (Did they play anyone else ever?)
My father’s feet tap a shiny beat on the floor.

Christ, my father says, that’s some voice she’s got.
I pick up the record cover. And now. This is slow motion.
My hand swoops, glides, swoops again.
I pick up the cover and my fingers are all over her face.
Her black face. Her magnificent black face.
That’s some voice. His shoes dancing on the floor.

There are some stones that open in the night like flowers
Down in the red graveyard where Bessie haunts her lovers.
There are stones that shake and weep in the heart of night
Down in the red graveyard where Bessie haunts her lovers.

ALT

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166d

Smoky sky.
In autumn wind
I stroll by the quays
in the last light…

—Edwin Morgan, “Je ne regrette rien: in memory of Edith Piaf”
published in COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2012)

28 March is International Women in Music Day

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857541885

#Scottish #literature #InternationalWomenInMusicDay #poem #poetry #EdithPiaf #music #singer

Edwin Morgan
Je ne regrette rien
in memory of Edith Piaf

Smoky sky.
In autumn wind
I stroll by the quays
in the last light,
my coat flaps, flaps,
wet chestnut leaves
spatter the Seine.
I glance in a window
and touch my hair, yes
I am tiny as they say,
tiny as a sparrow.
Now the lights come on.
I stand under the lamp,
turn up my collar
in a circle of rain
and wait for you.

It’s all beginning again.
Dead leaves or spring
it comes back, it begins.
How could I struggle?
When you held me, your shoulders
were a wall, I sheltered
in your shadow, it began.
They say I couldn’t count my men –
in thirty years I couldn’t count them!
But who counts years?
Count the years I was blind?
Dandled in a brothel? Taught by whores?
Count the prayers that gave me my sight at Lisieux?
Or the heartbeats of my daughter, in thousands,
when I bore her at fourteen
till she starved and died?
Count the crusts I’ve had, or those I’ve given?
The gutters I’ve sung in, or the great halls?
Count the glasses I’ve drunk? Count the beds
I’ve lain in, the lips I’ve kissed?
I can’t count the surgeons who’ve opened me –
do you think my lovers are in a book?
Do you want me to start counting tears?
Count what? The cost? What cost? I won!

No! let the men that had me go their ways.
I regret nothing, nothing. Some were kind.
But I don’t care if they were kind!
I don’t remember if it was bad.
I don’t keep the past in my pocket.

ALT

I’ve paid for it all, I’ve forgotten it all.
I’ve paid for it all, I’ve forgotten it all.
I strike a match to my memories,
they light a fire and disappear.

I warm my arms tonight
the fire begins
the stars come out
yes it begins
I am forty-five
it begins again
I hear his step
yes it begins
his broad shoulders
glisten through the rain
I can see
the dead cigarette
in his firm mouth
he throws it aside
it begins and
I regret nothing

We sway in the rain,
he crushes my mouth.
What could I regret
if a hundred times
of parting struck me
like lightning if this
lightning of love
can strike and
strike
again!

ALT

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154d

It steppit like a stallion,
Wha’s heid hauds up a horn,
And weel the men o’ Scotland kent
It was the unicorn…

—William Soutar (1898–1943), “Birthday”

Another poem for National Unicorn Day 🦄 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #Scots #Scotslanguage #NationalUnicornDay #unicorn

Birthday
William Soutar

There were three men o’ Scotland
Wha rade intill the nicht
Wi’ nae mune lifted owre their crouns
Nor onie stern for licht:

Nane but the herryin’ houlet,
The broun mouse, and the taed,
Kent whan their horses clapper’d by
And whatna road they rade.

Nae man spak to his brither,
Nor ruggit at the rein;
But drave straucht on owre burn and brae
Or half the nicht was gaen.

Nae man spak to his brither,
Nor lat his hand draw in;
But drave straucht on owre ford and fell
Or nicht was nearly düne.

There cam a flaucht o’ levin
That brocht nae thunner ca’
But left ahint a lanely lowe
That wudna gang awa.

And richt afore the horsemen,
Whaur grumly nicht had been,
Stude a’ the Grampian Mountains
Wi’ the dark howes atween.

Up craigie cleuch and corrie
They rade wi’ stany soun’,
And saftly thru the lichted mirk
The switherin’ snaw cam doun.

They gaed by birk and rowan,
They gaed by pine and fir;
Aye on they gaed or nocht but snaw
And the roch whin was there.

ALT

Nae man brac’d back the bridle
Yet ilka fit stude still
As thru the flichterin’ floichan-drift
A beast cam doun the hill.

It steppit like a stallion,
Wha’s heid hauds up a horn,
And weel the men o’ Scotland kent
It was the unicorn.

It steppit like a stallion,
Snaw-white and siller-bricht,
And on its back there was a bairn
Wha low’d in his ain licht.

And baith gaed by richt glegly
As day was at the daw;
And glisterin’ owre hicht and howe
They saftly smool’d awa.

Nae man but socht his brither
And look’t him in the e’en,
And sware that he wud gang a’ gates
To cry what he had seen.

There were three men o’ Scotland
A’ frazit and forforn;
But on the Grampian Mountains
They saw the unicorn.

ALT

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137d

Poet, the flowers are open
even when we are dead…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “At the Funeral of Robert Garioch”
published in DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)

Robert Garioch (1909–81), one of the greatest figures in 20th-century Scottish poetry, died #OTD, 26 April

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #elegy

Iain Crichton Smith
At the Funeral of Robert Garioch

Something about the April day
touched me
as they slid your coffin onto the trolley
in the Crematorium.

More and more often it troubles me
this wind my sails have missed
which is still around me
fluttering the bluebells.

‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ we sang.
It was time for the burning.
The minister blessed it
dressed in his white gown,

his voice fat and voluptuous,
his enunciation pure.
You slid down into fire
in your yellow coffin.

In half-way April
the breeze was vulnerable
straying among the warble
of the first birds.

Poet, the flowers are open
even when we are dead
even when the power has gone
from our right arms.

The flowers open in flame.
The coffin slides home.
Fugitive April becomes
a tremendous summer.

ALT

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162d

Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together…

—Edwin Morgan, “A Home in Space”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Artemis #space #NASA

A Home in Space
Edwin Morgan

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear.
Clear crystals in swarms outside were their fireflies and larks.
Larks they were in lift-off, swallows in soaring.
Soaring metal is flight and nest together.
Together they must hatch.
Hatches let the welders out.
Out went the whitesuit riggers with frames as light as air.
Air was millions under lock and key.
Key-ins had computers wild on Saturday nights.
Nights, days, months, years they lived in space.
Space shone black in their eyes.
Eyes, hands, food-tubes, screens, lenses, keys were one.
One night – or day – or month – or year – they all –
all gathered at the panel and agreed –
agreed to cut communication with –
with the earth base – and it must be said they were –
were cool and clear as they dismantled the station and –
and gave their capsule such power that –
that they launched themselves outwards –
outwards in an impeccable trajectory, that band –
that band of tranquil defiers, not to plant any –
any home with roots but to keep a –
a voyaging generation voyaging, and as far –
as far as there would ever be a home in space –
space that needs time and time that needs life.

ALT

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162d

Ayont the linn; ayont the linn,
Whaur gowdan wags the gorse,
A gowk gaed cryin’: “Come ye in:
I’ve fairins in my purse…”

—William Soutar, “The Gowk”
published in Collected Published Poetry (Tippermuir, 2024)

April Fool’s Day is Huntigowk Day in Scotland

https://tippermuirbooks.co.uk/product/william-soutar-collected-works-vols-1-2/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #April1st

The Gowk
William Soutar

Ayont the linn; ayont the linn,
Whaur gowdan wags the gorse,
A gowk gaed cryin’: “Come ye in:
I’ve fairins in my purse.

My bield is o’ the diamond stane
Wi’ emerant atween:
My bonnie een are yours alane,
An’ rubies are my een.”

My faither brak a sauchy stick;
My mither wal’d a stane:
An’ weel l set it for the trick
Tae mak the gowk my ain.

The stane was set; the shot was shot;
The flichterin’ burd was fund:
But nocht aboot that lanely spot
O’ gowd or diamond.

It had nae siller for a croun;
Nae rubies for its een:
But a the crammasy ran doun
Whaur aince its breist had been.

I look’t; an’ there was nane tae see
The fairin I had taen:
I hung it on a roden-tree
An’ left it a’ alane.

ALT

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164d

It is big sky and its changes,
the sea all round and the waters within.
It is the way sea and sky
work off each other constantly,
like people meeting in Alfred Street,
each face coming away with a hint
of the other’s face pressed in it…

—Andrew Greig, “Orkney/This Life”
published in INTO YOU (Bloodaxe, 2001)

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/orkney-life/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Orkney

Orkney / This Life
Andrew Greig

For Catherine and Jamie

It is big sky and its changes,
the sea all round and the waters within.
It is the way sea and sky
work off each other constantly,
like people meeting in Alfred Street,
each face coming away with a hint
of the other’s face pressed in it.
It is the way a week-long gale
ends and folk emerge to hear
a single bird cry way high up.

It is the way you lean to me
and the way I lean to you, as if
we are each other’s prevailing;
how we connect along our shores,
the way we are tidal islands
joined for hours then inaccessible,
I’ll go for that, and smile when I
pick sand off myself in the shower.
The way I am an inland loch to you
when a clatter of white whoops and rises . . .

It is the way Scotland looks to the South,
the way we enter friends’ houses
to leave what we came with, or flick
the kettle’s switch and wait.
This is where I want to live,
close to where the heart gives out,
ruined, perfected, an empty arch against the sky
where birds fly through instead of prayers
while in Hoy Sound the ferry’s engines thrum
this life this life this life.

ALT

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138d

What a wonderful surprise this afternoon to see that my #haiku received an honorable mention in
The Solitary Daisy's 2026 Annual Haiku Contest 💛✨

Congratulations to all! 👏👏

#poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #WritingCommunity

https://thesolitarydaisy.ca/haiku-contest/

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160d

The cold Roman eye, hand on seal.
Vale. Take the thief away.

“You carry your own tree, Jimmy…”
Another gallowsbird behind.
One ahead, burdened, a bruised brightness…

—George Mackay Brown, “Stations of the Cross: The Good Thief”
published in CARVE THE RUNES: Selected Poems (Birlinn, 2021)

https://birlinn.co.uk/product/carve-the-runes/

#Scottish #literature #Easter #GoodFriday #poem #poetry #Orkney

Stations of the Cross: The Good Thief
George Mackay Brown

The cold Roman eye, hand on seal.
Vale. Take the thief away.

‘You carry your own tree, Jimmy . . .’
Another gallowsbird behind.
One ahead, burdened, a bruised brightness.

I’ve carried millstones, wine-vats, a mast.
That one was a carpenter.
His knees buckle under the heavy baulk.

My mother, poor woman, is dead.
His mother is here. Poor woman. Poor woman.

Look, Simon’s come into town
With an ox to sell.
They’ve laid another yoke on Simon.

Veronica, seamstress. No napkin ever
Soaked up such blood and sweat.

I stagger but I don’t fall.
The sneak-thief plods like a mule.
The bright one, he’s down again.

Those women! Miriam, Judith, Esther
Go home, sing over your cradles.
Sing among looms and pots.

Below, cornfields and vineyards.
A third time, fallen.
He tastes golden dust.

ALT

The soldiers won’t bother, I think,
Haggling over my coat.
No scarecrow would wear a rag like that.

Silence – curses – from cross and cross.
From the mid-ark
A dove wings out into the blackest storm.

Thrust of lance into heart-root.
The soldiers are coming with mallets
To break the legs of the thieves.

The eyes of the mother
Drown all the world in pity and love.
The hammer beats on my knee.

That the hands of such a woman
Fold me gravewards.
Bear me and all men in her folds of light.

ALT

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160d

Three o’clock. The bus lurches
round into the sun. “D’s this go –”
he flops beside me – “right along Bath Street?
– Oh tha’s, tha’s all right, see I’ve
got to get some Easter eggs for the kiddies…

—Edwin Morgan, “Good Friday”
from CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS, @carcanet.bsky.social 2020

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781784109967/centenary-selected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry #GoodFriday #Glasgow