from Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1990)
#ScottishWriters
Guten Morgan was a limited editio… ‘Less is not better’ ‘Poetry comes and goes’ ‘Rainbow’ ‘Fled’
Three particles lived in mystical… They made knife, fork, and spoon, and earth, sea, and sky. They made animal, vegetable, and m… and faith, hope, and charity.
Push the boat out, compañeros, push the boat out, whatever the se… Who says we cannot guide ourselves through the boiling reefs, black a… the enemy of us all makes sure of…
Oh for Christ’s sake gie the sign… Alchemist my erse, but he’s hermle… He’ll never blaw us up in oor beds… If makkin wings is his new-fanglt… It’ll no cost the earth– a wheen o…
Sssnnnwhuffffll? Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl? Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g g… Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl f… gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw g…
There is no beginning. We saw Lew… laid down, when there was not much… and volcanic fires; watched long s… faults; laughed as Staffa cooled.… bruises were grated off like nutme…
Coming up Buchanan Street, quickl… a young man and two girls, under t… The young man carries a new guitar… the girl on the inside carries a v… and the girl on the outside carrie…
‘What would you put in the foundat… for future generations?’ ‘A horses… a ballet shoe, a horseshoe crab, a… a sheriff’s star, a pacemaker, a t… a ladybird, a love-letter, a laugh…
Others are open. You give a high… as you win the Prospero stakes, an… bury your books deeper than any au… could find them sound or unsound. Did you ‘die a papist’, hate dogs,…
Someone is born again. In the singing tower the rain Sweetened the song And all night long I heard a sad and muffled prayer,
Colour Poems was a suite of five… in an edition of 100 copies in May… using between two and twelve colou… They were printed by John Taylor… Images of the prints from this fol…
It was so fine we lingered there f… The long broad streets shone stron… Sunset blinded the tremble of the… we watched from, dazed the helipor… The mile-high buildings flashed, f…
The scaffolding has gone. The sky… Clanking poles and thudding planks… let light through At last, hammered the cage door of… bantering dusty brickie crew,
In a little rainy mist of white an… we sat under an old tree, drank tea toasts to the powdery mo… undrunk got merry, played catch with the empty flask, on the pine…
The year goes, the woods decay, an… many a summer dies. The swan on Bingham’s pond, a ghost, comes… It goes, and ice appears, it holds… bears gulls that stand around surp…