Eggplant.place

220d

A Reader’s Guide to Poetry for National Poetry Month

By The Editors

Read poems, learn poetic forms, and discover writers in this National Poetry Month roundup.

https://daily.jstor.org/editors-picks-national-poetry-month/?utm_source=mcae&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jstordaily_04022026

Poetry at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/637

#books #literature #poetry

Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.

A small black and white decorative vignette — a quill pen thrust diagonally through a curling scroll or sheet of paper.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43224/43224-h/43224-h.htm

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220d

A Poet of Science Who Shook Faith in God

Biographer Richard Holmes reveals how Tennyson predated Darwin and speaks to us today

By Kevin Berger

https://nautil.us/a-poet-of-science-who-shook-faith-in-god-1279489

Tennyson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2987

#books #literature #poetry

Portrait of Alfred Lord Tennyson by Samuel Laurence, 1840.

Tennyson is portrayed with abundant dark chestnut hair swept back from a strong, angular face, gazes slightly to his left. The features are sharply defined — a prominent nose, firm jaw, deep-set eyes — and a loose dark coat with white collar.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Lord_Tennyson_1840.jpg

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196d

Nae man wha loves the lawland tongue
But warsles wi’ the thocht—
There are mair sangs that bide unsung
Nor a’ that hae been wrocht…

—“The Makar”, by William Soutar (1898–1943) – born #OTD, 28 April

A 🎂 🧵

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

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

William Soutar
The Makar

Nae man wha loves the lawland tongue
But warsles wi’ the thocht
There are mair sangs that bide unsung
Nor a’ that hae been wrocht.

Ablow the wastrey o’ the years,
The thorter o’ himsel’,
Deep buried in his bluid he hears
A music that is leal.

And wi’ this lealness gangs his ain;
And there’s nae ither gait
Though a’ his feres were fremmit men
Wha cry: Owre late, owre late.

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220d

A girnin, greitin deil wis I –
I wis auld, and feelin aulder.
Syne the heatin system burst in Hell:
It wis cauld – and gettin caulder…

—James Robertson, “Beelzebub Resurfaces”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/beelzebub-resurfaces/

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

Beelzebub Resurfaces
James Robertson

A girnin, greitin deil wis I –
I wis auld, and feelin aulder.
Syne the heatin system burst in Hell:
It wis cauld – and gettin caulder.

When the fires were doun tae reek and ash,
And the cauldrons fou o ice,
And imps and bogles hunkered roond
Like cowrin, chitterin mice,

And the wretched deid were truly deid,
And had nae pain left tae thole –
I kent that it wis time tae leave
Yon dreich and dowie hole.

I trauchled up the auld stane stair,
Unsnecked the rousty yett,
And hard upon the stoury grund
Ma clootie fit I set.

The Earth wis yince a paradise –
It wis bonnie, bricht and braw,
And a sulky soor-mooth like masel
It didna please at aw.

But noo I fund a different scene,
That gart ma spirits lowp,
For man had made his paradise
A stinkin, scabbit cowp.

The land wis deid, the oceans deid,
The fush and wild beasts gane,
The rainforests were hackit doun,
And the rain wis acid rain;

Deserts had smoored the green fields ower,
The ice-caps were snaw-bree,
Floods had drouned the straths and glens,
And wild winds whipped the sea.

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Fires bleezed that made aw Hell’s fires seem
Mere skinkles in the nicht;
And, in their bonnie, beekin lowe,
O whit a glorious sicht!

God’s craitur fechtin wi himsel
For ile and land and food,
For widd and water, graith and gear,
And – best o aw – for God;

Men busy killin ither men
Wi guns and bombs and tanks,
And slauchterin bairns and weemin tae –
And the deid piled up in ranks.

I minded whit I’d read langsyne
And clapped ma hauns wi glee,
For whit I saw looked awfie like
A Judgment Day tae me.

Sae aw ye princes, presidents
And ither heids o state,
Herrie and fyle, oppress, invade,
And dinna be ower blate.

And aw ye haly terrorists,
Be bauld and fou o faith,
And whaur ye ding doun tyranny
Raise misery and daith.

I am a stranger faur frae hame,
But I fairly like yer style,
Sae dinna mind me sittin here –
I dout I’ll bide a while.

A girnin, greitin deil wis I –
A sair-faced auld doom-monger.
But noo I’m happy, and whit’s mair –
I believe I’m gettin younger!

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197d

Push the boat out, compañeros,
push the boat out, whatever the sea…

—Edwin Morgan, “At Eighty”: a poem written for his own 80th birthday

Edwin Morgan (1920–2010) was born #OTD, 27 April – a 🎂 🧵

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https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/eighty-0/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #EdwinMorgan #birthday #80thbirthday

At Eighty
by Edwin Morgan

Push the boat out, compañeros,
push the boat out, whatever the sea.
Who says we cannot guide ourselves
through the boiling reefs, black as they are,
the enemy of us all makes sure of it!
Mariners, keep good watch always
for that last passage of blue water
we have heard of and long to reach
(no matter if we cannot, no matter!)
in our eighty-year-old timbers
leaky and patched as they are but sweet
well seasoned with the scent of woods
long perished, serviceable still
in unarrested pungency
of salt and blistering sunlight. Out,
push it all out into the unknown!
Unknown is best, it beckons best,
like distant ships in mist, or bells
clanging ruthless from stormy buoys.

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197d

#OTD in 1667, John Milton sells the copyright to Paradise Lost for only 10 pounds.

https://lithub.com/lit-hub-daily-april-27-2026/

Works of John Milton at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/17

#books #literature #poetry

"Hall portrait" of John Milton. The work is attributed to either Mary Beale or Peter Lely. He wearing a dark doublet with a prominent white lace collar. His hair is long and wavy.

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219d

Done is a battell on the dragon blak,
Our campioun Chryst confoundit hes his force;
The ȝettis of hell ar brokin with a crak,
The signe triumphall rasit is of the croce…

—William Dunbar, c.1460–1520. The poem was most likely written when Dunbar was at James IV’s court

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #medieval #medievalliterature #Easter #Scots #Scotslanguage

Done is a battell on the dragon blak
William Dunbar (c. 1460–1520)

Done is a battell on the dragon blak,
Our campioun Chryst confoundit hes his force;
The ȝettis of hell ar brokin with a crak,
The signe triumphall rasit is of the croce;
The diuillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,
The saulis ar borrowit and to the blis can go,
Chryst with his blud our ransonis dois indoce:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

Dungin is the deidly dragon Lucifer,
The crewall serpent with the mortall stang;
The auld kene tegir, with his teith on char
Quhilk in a wait hes lyne for us so lang,
Thinking to grip us in his clowis strang;
The mercifull lord wald nocht that it wer so.
He maid him for to felȝe of that fang:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

He for our saik that sufferit to be slane
And lyk a lamb in sacrifice wes dicht,
Is lyk a lyone rissin vp agane
And as a gyane raxit him on hicht;
Sprungin is Aurora radius and bricht,
On loft is gone the glorius Appollo,
The blisfull day departit fro the nycht:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

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The grit victour agane is rissin on hicht,
That for our querrell to the deth wes woundit:
The sone that wox all paill now schynis bricht,
And, dirknes clerit, our fayth is now refoundit;
The knell of mercy fra the hevin is soundit,
The Cristin ar deliverit of thair wo,
The Iowis and thair errour ar confoundit:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

The fo is chasit, the battell is done ceis,
The presone brokin, the jevellouris fleit and flemit;
The weir is gon, confermit is the peis,
The fetteris lowsit and the dungeoun temit;
The ransoun maid, the presoneris redemit,
The feild is win, ourcumin is the fo,
Dispulit of the tresur that he ȝemit:
Surrexit dominus de sepulchro.

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219d

“This poem was written when my father was very ill, dying of cancer, & I was coming home from the hospital. Suddenly this line ‘I am the resurrection & the life’ came into my head & then the poem began to emerge from the line.”

—Edwin Morgan on “Message Clear”

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#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry #concretepoetry

“Message Clear”, by Edwin Morgan. A concrete poem where the lines are created by taking the phrase “i am the resurrection and the life” and, by selectively deleting letters from each line, building up the following text:

am i
if
i am he
hero
hurt
there and
here and
here and
there
i am rife
in sion and
i die
a mere sect
a mere section
of
the life
of
men
sure
the die
is set and
i am the surd
at rest
o life
i am here
i act
i run
i meet
i tie
i stand
i am thoth
i am ra
i am the sun
i am the son
i am the erect one if
i am rent
i am safe
i am sent
i heed
i test
i read
a thread
a stone
a tread
a throne
i resurrect
a life
i am in life
i am resurrection
i am the resurrection and
i am
i am the resurrection and the life

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219d

There’s a boulder by the forest path,
left by the ice ten thousand years ago,
it waits, patterned with lichen…

—Antonia Kearton, “A Benediction”
published in Break in Case of Silence: New Writing Scotland 39 (ASL, 2021)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/newwriting/nws39/

#Scottish #literature #Easter #poem #poetry

Antonia Kearton
A Benediction

There’s a boulder by the forest path,
left by the ice ten thousand years ago,
it waits, patterned with lichen

the quietest blue, yellow soft as cream,
knee-high, flat-topped, so wide
I cannot wrap my arms around it –

small hands of moss patter up its side.
It’s nothing like my grandmother’s table
at Easter, but that’s what comes to mind,

dark brown and shining under the white cloth,
bearing the feast, eggs dyed with onion skins
and at the centre, sweet pashka

a resurrection of butter, eggs, and cream,
radiant with bright sugared fruits –
moss green, rowan red, the sun’s strong yellow.

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195d

Here in Condorrat the nursery is shut
so adults with rosettes pinned to their hearts
can persuade us where to pin our hopes…

—Ross Wilson, “The Cost of Living”
published in VITAL SIGNS (Red Squirrel Press, 2023)

https://www.redsquirrelpress.com/product-page/vital-signs-ross-wilson

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #politics #elections

Ross Wilson
THE COST OF LIVING

Here in Condorrat the nursery is shut
so adults with rosettes pinned to their hearts
can persuade us where to pin our hopes.

How to explain voting to you, aged four?
‘What party would you vote for?’
‘A birthday party; with balloons.’
‘I think the balloon already has a party.’

Still, it’s our duty to vote. I spell
D.U.T.Y and she becomes a character
in a story we take turns to tell.

Later, you yell FASTER on a swing
as ‘Heat or eat’ headlines bemoan
the cost of living on a mobile phone
I bury in a pocket so I can push you on.

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197d

I am waiting
for the foot to slide,
for the heart to seize,
for the leaping sinews to go slack,
for the fight to the death to be fought to the death…

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

As well as being Edwin Morgan’s birthday, today is also Hyena Day. Happy International Hyena Day to those who celebrate

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #hyena #InternationalHyenaDay

Hyena
Edwin Morgan

I am waiting for you.
I have been travelling all morning through the bush
and not eaten.
I am lying at the edge of the bush
on a dusty path that leads from the burnt-out kraal.
I am panting, it is midday, I found no water-hole.
I am very fierce without food and although my eyes
are screwed to slits against the sun
you must believe I am prepared to spring.

What do you think of me?
I have a rough coat like Africa.
I am crafty with dark spots
like the bush-tufted plains of Africa.
I sprawl as a shaggy bundle of gathered energy
like Africa sprawling in its waters.
I trot, I lope, I slaver, I am a ranger.
I hunch my shoulders. I eat the dead.

Do you like my song?
When the moon pours hard and cold on the veldt
I sing, and I am the slave of darkness.
Over the stone walls and the mud walls and the ruined places
and the owls, the moonlight falls.
I sniff a broken drum. I bristle. My pelt is silver.
I howl my song to the moon – up it goes.
Would you meet me there in the waste places?

It is said I am a good match
for a dead lion. I put my muzzle
at his golden flanks, and tear. He
is my golden supper, but my tastes are easy.
I have a crowd of fangs, and I use them.
Oh and my tongue – do you like me
when it comes lolling out over my jaw
very long, and I am laughing?
I am not laughing.
But I am not snarling either, only
panting in the sun, showing you
what I grip
carrion with.

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I am waiting
for the foot to slide,
for the heart to seize,
for the leaping sinews to go slack,
for the fight to the death to be fought to the death,
for a glazing eye and the rumour of blood.
I am crouching in my dry shadows
till you are ready for me.
My place is to pick you clean
and leave your bones to the wind.

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197d

Sradagan san Iarmailt: Peter Mackay & Anna Frater
21 May, Hillhead Library, Glasgow – free

Crowned Bard Anna Frater & Scotland’s Makar Peter Mackay will discuss Sradagan san Iarmailt/Sparks in the Firmament, the new anthology of contemporary Gaelic poetry

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sradagan-san-iarmailt-peter-mackay-anna-frater-tickets-1988316724848

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poetry

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218d

cool rainy daylight
apple crab branches reflect
on slowness of spring

#photography #nature #poem #poetry #writing #spring

A photo I took last year, another slow spring of the apple crab tree reflected onto a wet glass table.

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221d

I wrote a poem, dedicated to all those "men" "too manly" to spend time with their #daughters.

"Sounds a bit gay, to be honest!"

https://yorkshiregeek.co.uk/posts/sounds-a-bit-gay-tbh/

#Dad #Father #Poetry #poem #Parenting #CreativeWriting #Men #Toxicmasculinity #masculinity

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218d

I’m here to recommend the new (February 2026) collection of poems by Nicky Melville, ‘Get Tae’. Writing also as nick-e melville, he’s one of my favourite poets, Scottish or otherwise. His work is lucid, biting, often darkly funny, satirical and archly acquisitive (in the sense that he borrows brilliantly from the mundane, the political, film, and the realms of ad copy, among other things).

The book is available from Blue Diode Press, who also published his excellent selected poems, ‘Decade of Cu ts’.

https://www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page/get-tae-by-nicky-melville

#NickyMelville #Poetry #ScottishPoetry #ScottishPoets #Edinburgh #BlueDiodePress #Bookstodon @bookstodon

The poetry collection, Get Tae, by Edinburgh based poet Nicky Melville. The paperback lies on a colourful geometric carpet. The book’s title is in very large white uppercase letters, filling about two thirds of the cover space. The background is grey-ish, concrete-like in colour and texture. It appears to be splattered with a red substance that looks a little like blood.

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218d

Your carolan’s blythe, bricht bird i the blackthorn bou,
this braw Voar morn, wi trill eftir spirlan trill,
tho you only ken the warld as it liggs the nou,
an nocht but a glisk concerns your chatteran bill…

—Maurice Lindsay, “On Hearin a Merle Singan (Arbroath Day, April 6th, 1946)”
published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL 2016)

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

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

Maurice Lindsay
On Hearin a Merle Singan
(Arbroath Day, April 6th, 1946)

Your carolan’s blythe, bricht bird i the blackthorn bou,
this braw Voar morn, wi trill eftir spirlan trill,
tho you only ken the warld as it liggs the nou,
an nocht but a glisk concerns your chatteran bill.

You feel the warm sun kissan your sparklan breist,
sea-green it glints as you dirl your feathered thrapple,
naithin mindit o things afore or neist
wi whilk, on this day o days, I try tae grapple.

Tae you, the Simmer’s come, sin the blue-gers glitters,
an spinnan-Maggies stoiter aboot the lawn.
It micht be sae, sin for days there’s no been a spitter
o rain tae sloke the drouth o the yird’s dry pawn.

Yet, fegs, the sun’s made you luik gey gilliegawky!
Gin ye only kennt, there’s snaw i the heich hills yet.
Ye’re no faur-seean, bird, lik the leathern baukie
wha although he’s blin’s nae perturbed by the cauld or the het.

As I hear you singan, merle, aa the thwartit flames
o my luve for Scotland loup i my waefu hert,
an six-hunnert-years-auld bluid reenges roun my veins
till my stangit heid’s agley wi an orra smert . . .

But maist folk in Scotland noo hae the baukie’s een,
caran for nocht that isnae smoorit in derk:
an tho they wad praise your sang for its happy shein,
at the thocht o the snaw i the hills their sauls aye lerk!

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218d

Aprovecho este lunes para dar el aviso que ¡Tengo un nuevo Blog!:

https://none-dc.neocities.org/

Está vez hecho desde cero por mi donde publicaré mis relatos, ensayos, poemas y pensamientos extendidos.

En lo que va de esta semana voy a estar compartiendo lo que llevo publicado allí, así que antemano disculpen el "spam" 😅.

Si te interesa hecharle un ojo ¡Estas más que Bienvenide!

EDIT: I forgot to mention: This is a bilingual Blog! You can read my stories, Poems and essays in both Spanish and English!

#Blog #bookstodon #literatura #websencilla #neocities #poesia #poetry

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217d

#OTD in 1770 English poet William Wordsworth was born.

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

Books by Wordsworth at PG:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2879

#books #literature #poetry

Portrait of William Wordsworth by William Shuter. He has brown hair and his left hand is tucked into his coat. His right hand is over a chair.

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217d

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause…

—“A cairn”, by Gael Turnbull (1928–2004) – born #OTD, 7 April
from WHILE BREATH PERSIST (The Porcupine’s Quill, 1992)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry

A Cairn
by Gael Turnbull

As by barren trackway
on a mountain crest
with view of scree and corrie,
ridge and col,
a traveller might pause,
take bearings, cast
in tribute to record:
“A man came here, went on,
left common token, shared
with those who went before
and shall come after.”

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217d

It’s hard to think that the earth is one –
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Rolls-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.

—Norman MacCaig, “Stars and Planets”
published in The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Birlinn, 2009)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

Stars and Planets
by Norman MacCaig

Trees are cages for them: water holds its breath
To balance them without smudging on its delicate meniscus.
Children watch them playing in their heavenly playground;
Men use them to lug ships across oceans, through firths.

They seem so twinkle-still, but they never cease
Inventing new spaces and huge explosions
And migrating in mathematical tribes over
The steppes of space at their outrageous ease.

It’s hard to think that the earth is one –
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Rolls-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.

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217d

Nothing But the Poem – Robin Robertson

Winner of all three Forward Prizes for poetry, Robin Robertson also holds the distinction of writing the only poem ever nominated for the Booker Prize: his epic 2018 work The Long Take.

In this new episode of the Scottish Poetry Library podcast, Samuel Tongue explores two vintage Robin Robertson poems: ‘Cat, Failing’ & ‘Swimming in the Woods’.

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/podcast/nothing-but-the-poem-robin-robertson/

#Scottish #literature #poetry #podcast

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217d

Chì mi rè geàrd na h-oidhche
dreòs air chrith ’na fhroidhneas thall air fàire,
a’ clapail le a sgiathaibh,
a’ sgapadh ’s a’ ciaradh rionnagan na h-àird’ ud…

—Deòrsa Mac Iain Deòrsa (George Campbell Hay), “Bisearta”. Hay witnessed the Allied bombing of Bizerte in 1943

#Scottish #literature #Gaidhlig #Gaelic #poem #poetry #warpoetry #ww2

Deorsa Mac lain Deòrsa (George Campbell Hay)
Bisearta

Chì mi rè geard na h-oidhche
dreòs air chrith ’na fhroidhneas thall air fàire,
a’ clapail le a sgiathaibh,
a’sgapadh ’s a’ ciaradh rionnagan na h-àird’ ud.

Shaoileadh tu gun cluinnte,
ge cian, o ’bhuillsgein ochanaich no caoineadh,
ràn corraich no gàir fuatha,
comhart chon cuthaich uaith no ulfhairt fhaolchon,
gun ruigeadh drannd an fhòirneirt
on fhùirneis òmair iomall fhèin an t-saoghail.
Ach siud a’ dol an leud e
ri oir an speur an tostachd olc is aognaidh.

C’ainm nochd a th’ orra,
na sràidean bochda anns an sgeith gach uinneag
a lasraichean ’s a deatach,
a sradagan is sgreadail a luchd thuinidh,
is taigh air thaigh ga reubadh
am broinn a chèile am brùchdadh toit’ a’ tuiteam?
Is cò a-nochd tha ’g atach
am Bàs a theachd gu grad ’nan cainntibh uile,
no a’ spàirn measg chlach is shailthean
air bhàinidh a’ gairm air cobhair, is nach cluinnear?
Cò a-nochd a phàigheas
seann chìs àbhaisteach na fala cumant?

Uair dearg mar lod na h-àraich,
uair bàn mar ghile thràighte an eagail èitigh,
a’ dìreadh ’a uair a’ teàrnadh,
a’ sìneadh le sitheadh àrd ’s a’ call a mheudachd,
a’ fannachadh car aitil
’s ag at mar anail dhiabhail air dhèinead,
an t-Olc ’na chridhe ’s ’na chuisle,
chì mi ’na bhuillean a’ sìoladh ’s a’ leum e.
Tha ’n dreòs ’na oillt air fàire,
’na fhàinne ròis is òir am bun nan speuran,
a’ breugnachadh ’s ag àicheadh
le ’shoillse sèimhe àrsaidh àrd nan reultan.

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Bizerta
translated by George Campbell Hay

I see during the night guard
a blaze flickering, fringing the skyline over yonder,
beating with its wings
and scattering and dimming the stars of that airt.

You would think that there would be heard
from its midst, though far away, wailing and lamentation,
the roar of rage and the yell of hate,
the barking of frenzied dogs from it or the howling of wolves,
that the snarl of violence would reach
from yon amber furnace the very edge of the world;
but yonder it spreads
along the rim of the sky in evil ghastly silence.

What is their name tonight,
the poor streets where every window spews
its flame and smoke,
its sparks and the screaming of its inmates,
while house upon house is rent
and collapses in a gust of smoke?
And who tonight are beseeching
Death to come quickly in all their tongues,
or are struggling among stones and beams,
crying in frenzy for help, and are not heard?
Who tonight is paying
the old accustomed tax of common blood?

Now red like a battlefield puddle,
now pale like the drained whiteness of foul fear,
climbing and sinking,
reaching and darting up and shrinking in size,
growing faint for a moment
and swelling like the breath of a devil in intensity,
I see Evil as a pulse and a heart
declining and leaping in throbs.
The blaze, a horror on the skyline,
a ring of rose and gold at the foot of the sky,
belies and denies
with its light the ancient high tranquillity of the stars.

ALT

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216d

The boy is ten and today it is his birthday.
Behind him on the lawn
his mother and his little sister
unfurl a rainbow crayoned big and bright
on a roll of old wallpaper…

—Liz Lochhead, “The Spaces Between” – Glasgow, April 2020
published in A HANDSEL (Birlinn, 2023)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #covid #lockdown

The Spaces Between
Liz Lochhead

(for Leslie McGuire)

The boy is ten and today it is his birthday.
Behind him on the lawn
his mother and his little sister
unfurl a rainbow crayoned big and bright
on a roll of old wallpaper.
His father, big-eyed, mock-solemn, pantomimes ceremony
as he lights the ten candles on the cake.
Inside her living-room
his grandmother puts her open palm to the window.
Out in the garden, her grandson
reaches up, mirrors her, stretching fingers
and they smile and smile as if they touched
warm flesh not cold glass.

More than forty thousand years ago
men or women splayed their fingers thus
and put their hands to bare rock, they
chewed ochre, red-ochre, gritted charcoal and blew,
blew with projectile effort that really took it out of them,
their living breath.
Raw gouts of pigment
spattered the living stencil
that was each’s own living hand
and made their mark.
The space of absence
was the clean, stark picture of their presence
and it pleased them.
We do not know why they did it
and maybe they did not either but
they knew they must.
It was the cold cave wall
and they knew they were up against it.

ALT

The birthday boy is juggling.
He has been spending time in the lockdown learning
but though he still can’t keep it up for long
his grandmother dumb-shows most extravagant applause.
She toasts them all in tea
from her Best Granny in the World mug, winking
and licking her lips ecstatically as,
outdoors, they cut the cake,
miming hunger, miming
prayer for her hunger to be sated.
The slim girl dances
and her grandmother claps
and claps again, blinking tears.
Another matched high-five at her window.

Neither the blown candles or the blown kisses
will leave any permanent mark
– unless love does? –
on them on this the only afternoon
they will be all alive together on just this day the boy is ten.

ALT

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215d

I am not
A woman,
I am the
Smoldering
Ruins of
The stars.

#poetry

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215d

This is the animal that never was.
Not knowing that, they loved it anyway:
its bearing, its stride, its high, clear whinny—
right down to the still light of its gaze…

—Don Paterson, “Unicorn”
after Rilke’s “Die Sonette an Orpheus”
published in POETRY, June 2004

Today, 9 April, is National Unicorn Day! 🦄

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=184&issue=3&page=73

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #NationalUnicornDay #unicorn #Rilke