Eggplant.place

136d

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.

ALT

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.

ALT

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134d

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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136d

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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158d

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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160d

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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157d

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.

ALT

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157d

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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157d

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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156d

#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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156d

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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156d

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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156d

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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156d

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.

ALT

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.

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155d

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.

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154d

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

#poetry

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154d

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

Unicorn
by Don Paterson
after Rilke’s “Die Sonette an Orpheus”

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.

It never was. And yet such was their love
the pure beast arose; they had cleared the space.
And in the stable of its nothingness
it shook its white mane out and stamped its hoof.

They fed it, then, not with hay or corn,
but with the chance that it might come to pass.
All this gave the creature such a power

its brow put out a horn; one single horn.
It grew inside a maiden’s looking-glass
then one day walked out, and passed into her.

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134d

When the long, varnished buds of beech
Point out beyond their reach,
And tanned by summer suns
Leaves of black bryony turn bronze…

—Andrew Young, “The Beech-Wood”

Andrew Young (1885–1971) – described by C.S. Lewis as “A modern Marvell & a modern marvel” – was born #OTD, 29 April

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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury

The Beech-Wood
Andrew Young

When the long, varnished buds of beech
Point out beyond their reach,
And tanned by summer suns
Leaves of black bryony turn bronze,
And gossamer floats bright and wet
From trees that are their own sunset,
Spring, summer, autumn I come here,
And what is there to fear?
And yet I never lose the feeling
That someone close behind is stealing
Or else in front has disappeared;
Though nothing I have seen or heard,
The fear of what I might have met
Makes me still walk beneath these boughs
With cautious steps as in a haunted house.

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152d

Some wear
The darkness
Like armor,
Thinking it
Impenetrable,
Until the Sun
Rises.

#poetry

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151d

Laid-back in orbit, they found their minds.
They found their minds were very clean and clear…

—Edwin Morgan, “A Home in Space”
published in CENTENARY SELECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2020)

Yuri Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth #OTD, 12 April, 1961. Today is the International Day of Human Space Flight

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #space #spaceflight #InternationalDayOfHumanSpaceFlight #Gagarin

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.

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150d

To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk

Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read…

—“A Work for Poets”: the final poem of George Mackay Brown (1921–1996) who died #OTD, 13 April

Published in CARVE THE RUNES (Polygon, 2021)

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

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #poets #Orkney #20thcentury #GeorgeMackayBrown

A Work for Poets
George Mackay Brown

To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A ship
A star
A cornstalk

Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read

That not far from the stone
A well
Might open for wayfarers

Here is a work for poets –
Carve the runes
Then be content with silence

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150d

God said: Let the dark be dark.
Let the stars shine properly.
And let darkness with no stars
heal the damage caused by light…

—Robin Fulton Macpherson, “In the Dark”

Today, 13 April, is the start of International Dark Sky Week

https://idsw.darksky.org

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #DarkSkies #DarkSky #astronomy #InternationalDarkSkyWeek

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132d

In the blunted night of the coal shed,
without a torch, my fingers dig
among the coal for the coal.
Hear it scutter into the bucket…

—Brian McCabe, “Coal”
published in BODY PARTS, @canongatebooks 1999

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

#Scottish #literature #MayDay #InternationalWorkersDay #poem #poetry #coalmining

Coal
Brian McCabe

In the blunted night of the coal shed,
without a torch, my fingers dig
among the coal for the coal.
Hear it scutter into the bucket.

Something else is gathered, uttered
from a darker place where memory digs
and throws its coal into a bucket –
as if a ghost stuttered, spoke:

My father clears his throat, curses
the government: ‘Thirty years in Rosewell,
in Bilston Glen, in Monktonhall –
and what is there to show for it?’

And what is there to show for it?
Flattened sites, non-places, absences
surrounded by meaningless villages.
The bars look like air-raid shelters.

‘If the shops need iron grilles here,
they’ll need them everywhere.
Like the miners of Monktonhall
we’ll all know what siege means.’

I stumble from the dark into the dark
of that night into this, to light a fire,
to watch the flames rise and flare
into eloquent tongues.

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132d

Tae the Lords o’ Juteopolis the weavers hae spoke
“If ye rug doon oor wages, as sure as the cleck
We’ll fling up the shuttle; we’ll sune lat ye pree
The pluck o’ the lasses o’ Bonnie Dundee.”

—Mistress Lapstane, “Ane Strik(eing) Ballant”, 12 August 1875
✊
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#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #InternationalWorkersDay #MayDay #19thcentury #Victorian #strike #union #tradesunions