Travel Poems
Between Showers
On a Highland road we drive under rainbows,
broad arches of light
stroking frost-whiskered rows
of withered thistles and young catkins,
bright with dew and rain and sun
Down Under, I find rainbows slung low,
narrow on the lonely, winding road
between Ballarat and Bendigo,
where men came centuries ago
to seek and claim those pots of gold.
First published in 'From Glasgow to Saturn' literary magazine, Issue 22, June 2011.
Letting Go/Holding On
Sifting
piles of papers
I find
a photo of my nephew
before his exile
from the verdant isle.
Though
his brogue is long forgotten,
a thirst for his birthright persists.
Evenings
he will sip a Bushmills,
mornings
a mug of Scottish Blend.
First published in 'From Glasgow to Saturn' literary magazine, Issue 22, June 2011.
Perspectives
We drop through clouds,
drift in to descend
over Manhattan
and I know at once
I will modify my accent,
slip into a different
linguistic jet stream
as we skiff the runway
to land from across the Atlantic.
Seatbelts click,
I switch on my cell phone,
distance has metamorphosed meaning.
Mobile is a town in Alabama.
First published in 'From Glasgow to Saturn' literary magazine, Issue 21, March 2011.
Metropolis (after Epithets by Jamie McKendrick)
Edinburgh the architectural, the spectral, the intellectual, the financial,
the rocky fortressed, the flying buttressed, the traditional and radical,
the Doric- ironic, the volcanic-satanic, the laconic-bucolic and iconic
Edinburgh the beggar-beleaguered, the roadworks fatigued,
the up-market echelons and downtrodden druggies, snobs become yobs,
the political wrangle, the pink triangle, the socially glued, the ethnically stewed,
the Festival buzz, the Big Issue bizz, the pipe- skirling, kilt- birling,
Edinburgh the Scottish kitsch, the tartan tat, the made-in-China Jimmy hat,
market stalled, mothballed, tram declined, Leith Walk off the rails,
Princes Street snails’ pace, the profile perturbed, disturbed and disgraced.
Edinburgh the two-faced, fur coated nae knickers protest brigades,
the orange- walked, green-belted, eco warriors on parades,
Auld Reekie, Athens of the North, built on seven hills, cap-it-all chaos.
First published in 'From Glasgow to Saturn' literary magazine, Issue 22, June 2011.