Poetry anthology— Urban renewal

FLICKS

Flicks are finished
Young Sherlock Holmes
Can’t find what’s missing
In the gleaming snow.
We walked into the dark
Within daylight hours,
And blink like moles out
Past the popcorn.
We all had a share of the spoilers
Golden wrappers on the soundtrack
Home. Cinema’s sharing
Gloam.

XMAS

A silver star
Pulsing bright
In a stranger’s window,
Usually a window doesn’t mean much
But here is someone who believes in Xmas
Which is the same
As believing in friends and family.
Praise the commercialisation
Giving or getting
Is better than the blues
On a cold closed Sunday.

SPRING

Cleopatra girl’s eyelids,
Getting heavy
Like the water vapour
In the clouds;
Saharan skies make dust
To help make rain.
Her brooding eye shadow’s
The intensity of her clouds
Of feeling
Stirring up like cumulonimbus,
On a fresh rainy spring day
Yet to be, and full of tempered joy.

XMAS EVE

15:07
Christmas Eve,
Golden Churros clouds
Candy floss in a corner
Of the sky
Gripped by
The sunset,
Soon
Rutherglen main st
Will alight
With trees and snow
Hanging above the road
Like guitar strings
In Spanish Harlem
Warm coffee
Warms the mood.

OUTSIDE MY WINDOW

Look out, at all the
Squares of lights
Xmas eve
It’s hard to take in;
Every room has different moods
Every person is thinking
Something else,
It would be nice to harness
A national mood
With a television show
But now we keep in our pockets
Devices that have the sum total of us.

SWEET NOTHINGS

Crescent moon
Sails above the mosque,
The ghost of the will
To build a church
Not of concrete
Sits in a steeple
Lasooed with pigeons,
Clapping their wings.
On the 7 bus,
Man complains of
Changing drivers
Whispering sweet nothings,
When their talk
Isn’t cheap.
But to keep sane.

SPIN

Gallus,
I took a walk in the night.
A summer time which
Counted in the days
Like a farmer cherishing his cattle.
The shadow of a garden rhododendron
Gave the place an Indian feel.
At Langside library,
A pied cat caught me in its stare
Then moved on, towards a garden, where I couldn’t follow.

ONE LIGHT

Rain
Fizzing like pins outside.
Are buds getting sticky yet?
Birds have oil in their tail feathers.
Edge up the blind
Expecting a sea of black windows
And one is on,
Their kitchen light is always on.
Broken switch or superstition
If its switched off
There would be a darkness here.

BENCH

The bench.
The teenage troops
Don’t play football,
But tore it apart
Near the end of summer holidays.
An old man apparition asked the council
To put it there, breathing in the view
Of the valley and the trees.
Another advance
And streets are empty of echoes
Of summers of play. I want them back again.

WALKING

Astride
The countryside
Walkers go;
Lashes of wind on the back
To encourage forward.
The electricity wires
Span the sunset distance
With little black specs of birds
Watching, like picked notes
On strings, stretching across a fretboard
As music in the air
And in the mind
Pacifies.

MIST

Mist descends
On the Glen
Hugging the trees
Like a bodywarmer
Or a fur lined coat.
Somewhere out there
Is a fox’s den
Keeping warm
Till prey is brought.
The farms just graze cattle
Or sheep, heads down
Same old day,
Day in day out.
Dog walkers
Turn up their collar,
Think bed.

AUTUMNAL TRIO

Coming home,
First year of Primary,
Those wooden back fences
Gardens grimace together
Like old teeth.
The school’s gone,
New houses up
But the murky back garden’s still there,
The house with the dirty windows
And uncut lawn is gone
The way of the ghosts we thought
Communed there.

Autumn’s
Amber leaves
Summon up a memory
From the cauldron
Of the allotment
Burning drifting smoking
Across the town
Will another hand ever be held
Is love outwith my grasp
The embers of memory
Are blown
Out by the bough shaking winds
Of November
Sycamore liver spots
In the decay.

Bonfire night
The whole community
Enjoying 80s spirit, some might
Have hip flasks,
Kids ran,
The sky was clear.
What happened to all those people
Learning of a wood gathering?
Wonder what those folk
That uttered word of mouth
Would say of those days
As a star shone out.

NOUGHTIES GOTHS

Goths
At the Gallery of modern art
A collective strangeness
A power in the unity
Some like starlings broke off
To skatebored
While others hugged away
Their existential frost
Make up like death warmed up
By an old fashioned love.
The music is handed down.

FLYING SAUCER

The wee girl
Says to her mum in the twilight
A flying saucer
Is in the sky,
The clouds wander
Cross the moon
People cross their hearts
The scent is smoky mulch
In a flat, Christmas is wished upon
The stars are shards of glass
In the wake.

FESTIVE

Sundown,
A cat feels a pang
And we hear its jingling bell
Putting Christmas in the mind
Of a postman;
Kid Listening out
Till it became real.
Cards carry such weight
So many Christmas mornings
Aren’t recorded on delivery;
But his wife is expecting
And his haze turns to
Pastel blue.

LOVE LETTERS

Inky blue clouds,
A teenage love letter in blue
With tear drop smudge.
And like love,
It swells and crashes on a beach
With all that could mean.
A burgeoning holiday
& a family return,
Or just two names in the sand
Much less eternal
Than the gulls
Keeping an eye on
Our chips.

HOLLYWOOD

The first snow fall
Flutter in my heart
At the taxi rank.
The streetlight on her leather jacket
I never took a picture,
Wasn’t easy then.
But her eyes reflected Hollywood
In a concrete jungle
Near a sandstone city
The wind blown reflection
Mirrors no moment that will
Exist again.

CHIPS

What’s that light in the distance?
No it’s not some wandering star
But it’s the light of a chip shop
Fixed, permanently
The till has been there since the 70s
The orange decor
When the color telly bled
Into homes like a dodgy cartridge
The greasy smell, a dance of the seven veils.

KITES

White cloud
On blue sky
Looks like a fossil
On the beach
A kite’s string
Trails
And a pensioner picks it up
And hands it back
To the father of an absent minded
Child whose memories
Are made of this.

THE GLASS KEY

There’s a light on
In a room
For each soul still awake
Look out and across spider silky way
Wonder if that light across the block
Will go out before yours.
A fizz of rain around the immediate
Street light, and a buzz of moths.
A film lights up her face,
At the end lights out.

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 15th 2019

Sunshine after nieces have left
Seagulls like squashed M’s
Fish like a figure of 8
Oil painting passed down
Looks over like Obi Wan
Tickles with their dad
Hugs for mum
Back from an expedition
To the shops.
Painting, basins of water
With Gran
Grandpa’s wandering sarcasm
Chimes in.

THE CHURCH UP THE ROAD

Sunday church bells
Are appealing
To lift the numbers.
On the grounds
Coffee mornings.
A woman wills there to be weeds
When there are none.
The garden looks lovely
The design is Original
Sins are spent like a Thistledown wish
And each scent of Honeysuckle
Hints at another chance.

I LOVE GHOSTS.

The piano
On a Radio 4 repeat
Drama channel
Ghosts tap the keys
Wonder how they were paid
We walk like our own ghosts
In front on the testcard
Somewhere,
Teletext is playing
Muzak still
And life is an Open University.
Playing with time
Each day Playaway,
What’s today’s game?

LIFE IS GREAT

A double rainbow
Above the glacier carved valley,
Spring water
Falls
Onto fresh flowers and
Signifies all that is good in nature
Made for our eyes only,
The perfection of a ladybird
To a couple holding hands
Under a bruised sunset,
One designed to hold the other
Like a leaf scrunched bud.

NOT FADE AWAY

Man on a mobility vehicle,
See his face in his rear view mirror
An old face, with the trace of concentration.
The man watching Argentina ‘78;
The face in the truck,
A smile while on the way to Cornwall;
The man in the cinema,
Watching Clint make someone’s day
He has so many faces.

GOD’S GIFT

A dog,
Passive
Or boundless energy
Bounding to the edge of town;
Would a walk be the same without?
Its nose searching out
While you search in your head
The tv listings,
The dog scratches about in the next room
Like the ghost of a friend I never met.
Leave the light on
For the radio.

A PATCH OF LIGHT

Night’s getting closer
As August dwindles & shutters close.
The patch of light
Headlight of a car,
Squarely moving in your eyes
Like a cat chasing a moth.
Clock ticks
Time to turn the television on
Just to see another face,
That isn’t that of the Cheshire cat
Grinning curtains. Keeping us safe from harm.

CAT’S PYJAMAS

Her hair, auburn
Twirled round a seashell ear.
Her spirit was a cats ear
Twisting the night away
To Brown Eyed Girl.
Silence
Was comfortable,
Or jokes hit the bullseye
Even in their faltering silliness.
Our chemistry would baffle the text books
And meals were take away
Spell book.

IN THE AIR

Autumn leaves
Clues
For the Sunday night sleuths:
The wind, shaking the tree outside,
No holiday Maraca
But something of the dark nights.
The rattle of a can, tinny
As the t-shirt changes
To a wool jumper.
The rain shaft, from clouds
Biblically seen, ragged like
A chewed leaf.

SUNSHOWER

The sun
Shines brazenly,
It was here all along.
The curtain of rain
Drove us stir crazy,
Three constant days
Of grey, a colour designed to
Lower your expectations
Until sun flower in the marbleised blue.
The water level falls;
A sun shower, like kids making a rainbow
Of a hydrant.

CRYSTALS

Crescent moon
Sails through the night clouds
Like the charm
Of a necklace on a neck
You might like to kiss.
Glinting
Winking an eye
In a crowded bar,
As I collect the glasses
And go back to think on it,
At the back of the bar
Breaking up the crisp boxes
As dew sweat dances.

TOM WEIR

Tom Weir isn’t here
But he was there
On a craggy rock or
Vaulting God’s own country
Feet tapping
Like Molly at the typewriter keys.
I get home
After a late night;
Sleep
Drifting like mist
Over voice over,
He was a babbling brook
Taking me gently
To the rolling fields
Of slumber.

SWING OF THINGS

The swings were the thing
As a child in the spring
In the back garden
As the sunlight would sing;
The sun felt warm for the first time
And caught up with the pink blossom
On Cherry trees.
Now it’s September swings are again the thing
Swinging higher, as the summer
Dulls to dusk.

DALMARNOCK

The carer,
I see him at the bus stop
Hands on the shoulders
Of his charge
Reassuring
Before getting on the bus.
He pays the fare
While the man
Slightly startled looking sits.
The carer looks like a
Midfield general
Taps his friend
On his shoulder
As he sits behind
On the 18 bus.

UTOPIA

The Jehovah’s witness
Couple
Come to the door.
They have health and optimism
Aurally.
I flick through their booklet
When they leave
And it reminds me of Toryglen
ASDA at lunchtimes.
A school of children,
All the races mixing together
On the same mission
To complete school
Days.

THE MILLCROFT

3 men
Leaning on a fence
Of a smoking area
Like 3 crows
On a telegraph wire.
Dotted around high st.
Are people who have to dash
But 2 men lean in
For a chat.

THE ARCADE, EAST KILBRIDE

White elephants
Loll through the town centre.
At the civic centre
The grey soaks in
Rain,
But today it’s a nuisance
Glasses steaming up in the mall.
The bespoke shops
That were an enclave
In the arcade
Are long gone.

FOOTBALL SEASON

Those dandelion seeds
Carried on the wind,
Sometimes entwined with another,
To travel far and wide
They must be important,
Like the buzz and stripe of a bee
Or the “Square ball!”
Shout from the Junior football club
As match day begins again;
Crunching tackles
Pies and
Ghosting
To score.

TWO FIVE ZERO

The man takes position,
In an empty restaurant.
Calls my dad, “Young man.”
When my dad says
The steak pie was good,
He says, “Right answer.”
I hear him say to someone
He used to work in Barlinnie.
In his easy going ways
Some of the back up
Ready for danger
Mentality persists
Here.

SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST

The thunder
Goes on a rainy rampage
Looking for its lightning
Rod,
Somewhere;
I’m just waiting to feel the flat
Cool Down.
Listening to the DJ
On the radio,
Her elegant chaos
Reigns
As I remember
A window is open in the living room
Adding to the audio experience
Of rain.

A CRUSADE, 1985

Video Knights
Shining in the gloam in neon
Coming back from Gran’s
Who faded into the dark.
Graceland in the tape machine
Driving from Knightswood.
Fish& chicken bars,
The red piping glow
Of the burger chain in Rutherglen
With round tables,
Earth spinning in the
Dark into light.

TRY WHISTLING THIS

I used to hear
The postman whistle,
It was the 80s
And old men whistled
On the bus.
Where did the song go?
Can the charts,
Fill up the soul
And the landscape
Like the older generations.
Without CGI, and games
Not on board,
Music was king
The thing that tied you
To humanity
A tune.

CALDERGLEN

Walking up river,
The Calder
Wasn’t its bold cold self in summer
With the holidays.
A glen taken for granted.
The prize wasn’t
A picnic by the river
Or seeing fish meet the surface
But a waterfall, pride of EK
Where we sat on rocks;
I sat aside, like a sprite
In the algae fight.

THE LAUGHTER

Helen’s bereaved
She watches the seagulls
Sailing strong as a coathanger.
She lets them laugh
For her; hasn’t laughed in a while.
It was the beach that bereaved her
The sea had lost its sparkle
Cause what is the sea
Without you and me?
She volunteers in the hope
Of skipping time, a weekend.

PUDDLE

The puddle in the street,
It blows the way the wind
Is blowing.
One tilt that way,
It looks like a sea shell.
Another way, the wrinkles on a rhino.
A cyclists zips through
And unzips chaos.
The wind is still, for seconds
And it’s a cloud desert,
With the skin of
A Birds custard.

LONG CALDERWOOD

The shadows of seagulls
Flying past;
Takes me back to the 20min walk to school.
Respite from the class.
The morning, not long broken
Like the glass from night before
And there was that tree
Never been as big since,
Looming and full of black crows
Menacing looking, like commuters.

BIRDS

Astride
The countryside
Walkers go;
Lashes of wind on the back,
To encourage forward.
The electricity wires
Span the sunset distance
With little black specs of birds
Watching, like picked notes
On strings, stretching across a fretboard
As music in the air
And in the mind
Pacifies.

NEWQUAY

The vastness of the sea
Rolling to me;
The tops froth like a cappuccino,
Or a cool pint of lager
Depending on the time.
Bobbing and jumping are the surfers,
Moving towards the lushest wave
Curling its lip like a rock and roll star.
Night falls, and moonlight
Touches friendly base.

APOLLO

The misty moon
We are interdependent
So much romance
As it sails above
Lovers in all continents
And it gently strokes
The tides hushing
Tones on beaches
Where young lovers lie.
The earth’s a tilt
Cause of the moon
A rocket to the rock
Is science in action
While lovers lay
Sleepy.

MELLOW THUNDER

A Summer
On record
Playing in the corner
Of a room,
Windows open, breathes
Air into your senses,
Like a cool glass of water
Thunder rumbles
As the sky freshens
With a new aspect
Brought on
By the sun
Setting course
Towards the Asda
From this crow’s nest
I sail
To night’s sirens.

RADIO THREE

The orchestral
Sweep
Of music
On Radio 3
Was like shadows
Skirting over
Fields
Of late May
A floaty dress
Rehearsal
For the piquant piano
Like a lover’s
Fingers
Caressing
Your back
And the teasing
Sycamore breeze
Where a leaf is laden
With
Mellifluousness
Of Flamenco’s
Magic.

DAD

Late night
Ahead the glen breathes
Behind the stair lights
Remain.
The old man
Creaks down stairs
Squinting at me in the kitchen light;
We talk of the nights drawing in
And when its clear
We disagree.
“Have you ever thought of this phrase?”
He says
“Ill just humour the old cunt.”

MUM

In the garden
Some days her face
Is in pain
But today she is making
A funny emoji of it;
Knows them better than me.
She makes yogurt marinated chicken
Reads the paper with paper weight.
The neighbour in the garden
Starts a conversation
Mum says
Some days I put off procrastinating.

LL.

An electrical shop
Outmoded;
I don’t remember what all the screens
Were showing,
Grandstand
Or something,
But at the bus stop
The kinetic fizz was your eyes
Shining into mine;
Your jacket,
Fur lined
Like in that photograph
Of the moon.
You weren’t my rock
But I like
To go to back.

THE EDDYSTONE LIGHT
I left her today
Combing her hair
By the rocks where we found her
Singing out her mermaid soul.
But my lighthouse
Is no match for the lights
Of her underwater kingdom
Of which she is Queen in waiting.
A dive
A coy over the shoulder smile like a silent star,
And her tail Splashes bye.

ILL
Imbalance
In the mind
Trying to build a mosaic
Possessed by a picture maker
Breaking at all I have built
Using the pieces and shards
To concoct a nightmare
Worse than my sleeping conscious
Could create.
It’s a get up,
Shower, dress nightmare
A stranger walking
Inside my clothes.

STREET TEAMS
It was the ’80s
Ash pitches
Football matches
No match
For the expanse of sky
Swear I could see it curve
Towards the sea.
Papa suggested street teams I put it in action
But was overruled by the older;
Chutzpah to organise wasn’t mine
So I mined my own seam
Stuck in a life
In a dream. Music saves me.

ELEGANCE
A cat. It brings a little bit of feline fluidity
Into the swing of things,
As it pads about.
Life sometimes isn’t elegant,
But a cat is unerringly so. If it fills a vacuum in the soul, it fills it
With more style than a loft full of Cosmopolitans, Grazias.
Domestic zeitgeist…

BUILD
Grandpa
Pegs his washing
Carefully
Not slowly
The bib his granddaughter
Left behind.
Of the men who made the tower
Only a few exist
And after the job
Dispersed
To carefully brick and mortar
Their garden conservatories
Or peg their clothes
Carefully,
With love
Springing up
Cities.

OKAY?
4:24 am
Birds tweet
An aural headcount
To say I’m still here
Are you too?
Mist swathes
Around
The glen
Where a castle demolished
Didn’t see teddies picnics, punks or teenage poets
But was a sigh of relief
During the war
Stone roses are sprayed
On the walls
Nothing has stuck
Since.

TELEVISION
I had a dream
Tvs, big backed
Were in the electrical stores,
Peoples noses pressed to see the scores
Each TV in each store
Tried to drag me in;
Each set had Grandstand
And people pointed, urging
Me to watch.
I ran to C&A to escape
But it was a modern shop
With old clothes I wore.

BREEZY AFTERNOONS
Buddleia
On the wasteground,
An old sandstone school
With one entrance for boys
And one entrance for girls.
Playgrounds sound to the beat
Of a butterflies wings
Cabbage white;
One day the rooms will echo
With sound.
Or flats will shoot up
In a summer and autumn of
Hammers tapping.

THE GREAT MASTERS
Golden sunset
As bright as Sunflowers
Ladled on thick
As the tall grass
Moving with the weight of the wind.
A passing lit single decker bus
Like a travelling Edward Hopper show.
Beach mast, ash keys
And sycamore whirls
Form a surreal seeded world
Growing quickly
Secretly carefully.

FLOW
Roof tiles
Flow, like a Japanese drawing
Of waves.
One seagull surveys,
Another lands and places its wings behind
Like a royal meeting its public.
He looks for worms,
But not with the intent of a starling.
Darling, it’s cold out
Says a newlywed to her husband
Wear a jacket love.

MEMORY
Feeding a squirrel
At an outlying campus
For Caley;
An aborted course
After a year.
Memory fails me
In the days before
Social media cemented connections
Broken by time, or distance
The girl who took a boyish teen
In her lap. Soft Irish accentuated
The cruelty of parting.

HAMPDEN PARK
Sundown,
Peace settles the dust of the day
Too comfortable to turn on the light;
A mile down the road
Captain fantastic
And a stadium full of embers,
Breathe on them with a goal
Take us from jail of a goaless
Hampden Park. Echoing green
Of schoolboy dreams
Of a screamer
Back of the net.

SPACE STATION
3 floors up
One window
Tortoise Shell clouds
The other window
Little fleck like fossils
In my international space station
I am grounded
On the sofa
So good, Sunday
An evening to imagine
Threaded lines
Are boats
Zipping thru’
Mediterranean
Waters, warm
Enough for a hand
To cross.

BLAZING
I like old dudes in blazers
To the bowling,
Giving them a sense of a club,
Spic and span.
Ladies are competitive.
Wrought iron gates, 1908, say
“History is watching; History will judge.”
OnRoller’d grass,
Itching for my own blazer.
Saltire flags are at half mast
Flying proudly.

SCOTLAND THE BRAVE
Someone’s singing
But their work is unsung:
A scattering of wild flowers
To colour the grass verge,
A council call
Answered in a beating heart.
I walk from a block of flats
Re-clad like a stanza;
On scaffolding, young teams
And old teams play
Fair weather and foul.
A salt tear for a saltire
At the birth of a nation:
3 men, one to drive the crane,
One to lift onto the hook
And a man on the steel flag
Steady and criss-crossed
Like a heart. Or a B road.
This is freedom, faces painted
In sunshine and grime
And the singing goes on
In the April showers
At home with the dear
Or away with the departed.

WESTERING WINDS
I dust off my bomber jacket,
Step into the
Wild west.
Rust coloured weeds
Keep heads down,
Only walkers
Are crisp packets,
Ponderous tumbleweeds
Past a sandstone school
Gentrified by
Nature. Rose bay willow herb
Aims from a window;
Elastic jacket cuffs
Pinch. I feel
Like Clint Eastwood
Entering a new town.
Hands at the ready
For a quick draw.

CAIRNS
Late evening Golden blast
Through metallic grey clouds
Like a city of bright light shards,
Silvering the aerials
Propped on like the receivers
Of the Millennium Falcon
Houses are space ships
Full of technology.
Silver too are the boyant seagulls
With one eye on congregation
At the pond in Burnside.
The city has drained of shoppers
Floating in spaces
Like me and my father, till we touch down
At Cairns.
My dad’s facial signatures
That have served us so well.
As he signs with his pointed noise
And tongue feeling for the words
“I had my first drink here,”
A series of facial ticks, and looks to the past
Till the story is complete,
“So did my father.”
The coincidence rings down the years
And we think of calling it a
Day, after one more pint settles.

GIANT
The evening shadow turns me
Into a colossal giant,
Bigger than the tallest tree
On the walk down the hill
From where the balletic wind farms
Turn their arms round like
Synchronised swimmers;
The cloud blocks the sun
And a bobbing Larch adjusts its long sleeves
In the wind

REGENERATION
Friday evenings are for couples
Holding hands
Into the Spring sunshine;
Not the sunset
That’s too far away.
A t-shirt to will the weather
To do his bidding.
Pub is waiting,
But for the first time this year.
An evening rain storm could bring the pit patina of heels
On wet paving

CHIP PAPER
Newsflash
Across one nation
Down in any clues
In how to deal with the crosswords
Of today’s heated
Discourse, or reheated
Once she gets home
On the London tube
And parliament has been scrunched up
And then placed in the bin
Till tomorrow’s
Wig out and unbroken
Traditional spats.

HOMING
Night walk
L’ Été indien
Shadow cast by the moon
Of a rhododendron bush
In my body
Walks a schizophrenic
Posting notices on bowling greens
Nobody will notice till the morning
But now I stop a cat in its
Padding, fixing me a leonine stare
Vulnerable and strange
Like my lost self.

PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA BINGO
Now ladies, eyes down, heads down
And it’s a thumbs up from me
As we start a new game.
You’ve lived the game of life
And been someone’s wife
And like a broken egg
It’s not always as it’s cracked up to be
But I hope you’ll be cracking up
With the other girls as we enjoy
This Thursday afternoons game;
And like Thursday’s child, we have far to go.
So do all you pensioners
As we travel into the height of bingo excite-ment
(And by the way thanks to Janet for
Letting us put an advert on the back of her mobility scooter).
Right as I said, eyes down
And lets begin to win,
Here goes…
Clickety click, Margaret needs a brand new hip.
69, a bag of Doritos and Buckfast wine.
Buxom Sandra and a communion waifer thin nun, 81.
Steady as you go ladies
Steady as you go…

BLOOD AND THUNDER
Hearts vs Wolves
A friendly game
To cathartic-ally howl
Into the floodlit night
“I hope you’re as good at your job
As he is at his!”
A wry old man, Scotching
A younger fan’s
Bunker bombs
Targeted
Within his manager’s earshot.
Goals are to go home
Happy, not warm
In Winter’s chill

RUTHERGLEN MAIN STREET
On the main street
There’s a statue
A surgeon,
So he must have saved many lives.
He’s sitting down, his legs almost casually placed
Sometimes, in the mist
It’s just him and me.
I haven’t saved any lives
And I remember the living statues on Buchanan Street,
Cap beside them, a movement and a smile for the kids
Whose parents give them money.
Not everyone gets a statue
Or gets to entertain the crowds.
The graves in the Gorbals of the great and the good
Have nobody to tend them.
Their stones have been put out to tender.

MAGIC OF THE CUP
Mid-week
At the football club car-park
A brace of pigeons
Glide like paper aeroplanes
Of children who can only concentrate
On the game;
Today’s game is unveiling a new manager
Under a sheet of rain
Drying up, while the club secretary
And others busy themselves up
The ladder of the day
Windows are cleaned of the executive lounge
A decision is made,
A minute’s applause
To remember the dead and
To encourage the lads
Who can’t remember the sound
Save when they emerge from the tunnel.

HEX IS GONE
Nature is scary.
It designed a beehive’s hexagons
To be the perfect shape for storage and bee sleep.
And bees communicate by dancing.
Birds use the earth’s magnetic field to travel long distances. I don’t know
What that is.
You
Can see a spider
Think
When it’s cornered.
Miracles.

THE RACE
Galapagos tortoise and the hare.
Tortoise waddles home Hare
Laughs at his shelled rival
Who bears it with dignity.
You’re so slow, says the hare
I zip while all you can think of is to chew
Soporific lettuce.
Tortoise is a long time alone
Waiting for a friend
To chew over it all.

STORM FREYA
Storm Freya sounds nice.
Like a jolly hockey-sticks hippy chick.
Bet she makes a few of those whirlwinds of crisp packets and
Other detritus.
Haven’t seen that happen since in the playground.
I watch the birds from my flat window
Starlings like school kids, some together
Some breaking off for a wander
Seagulls flying on the updrafts
Hanging their coat on the wind
Or a pigeon… differently coloured dove.
Get a bad rep in Glasgow city centre. I like wood pigeons, how
Their wings
Clap together…As they take off.
And their bobbing heads as they walk.
Iridescent necks are like Cleopatra’s
Necklace.
In the storm filled with all the creatures, someone’s mother
Nature.
This is mine. And I’ll mine it for all it’s worth.

JUVENILE
My attempts to get served in East Kilbride’s bars failed when I was 12.
A beard of bees and a pair of stilts didn’t fool anyone.
Then I tried to steal from the supermarket
But my hat wasn’t as big as my belly.
Underhand but handcuffed.
I heard that old people were invisible
So I asked my gran to steal for me…
She turned me in, in her face that looked
Liked turned over fish batter from Victor’s.

GORBALS
Naked, stroking the tips of her hair
In the orange light,
Mooching in a graveyard;
We used to come here
“Who can walk into the darkness for longest”
And now here we are again
Neither of us running away
Moss on feet, dew wet
Breathing in the summer city night
Dotted high rise light.

DETRITUS
The Douglas family,
Stepping stones;
Living relics are the crisp Packets;
DNA in chewing gum lichen.
Too old are ring pulls for cans
Long since redesigned.
You sit there, like a Russian girl
Light spilling into a cold flat
Through net curtains, glassy eyed
Yawn watering the flowers.

BANGS
Wind blowing
The fringes of evening
As the universal dog walkers
Follow the path behind the estate
To the burial ground;
Time to ponder
A cloud wandering through heads
Before the evening murder mystery
Then bed.
Dog noses something
Like an ear of wheat
But it’s a weed to be sewn.

THE SUNNY SIDE
Seagulls in a team
Rub webbed feet
On the freshly cut grass;
See it once, you’ll never see it again.
In the memorial garden
In a city suburb
A woman swings her lanyard
While the other 2 smoke
At lunch; somewhere else
It’s eggs sunny side up
For a delivery man,
A singing spring.

DAYBREAK
The paperboy
Is up and atom,
Full of energy
Riding his bike
By the church;
A huge crucifix is lodged into the ground
There’s nobody else around
Occupied
Apart from a woman hanging
Washing further up,
The summer chemical scents
Left waiting,
Like a bee waits for trellis honeysuckle.

REST IN PEACE
Tending the grave
Of her husband,
A partner in crime
Born on a sure sign
Of love at first sight
In the Dennistoun Palais.
She queues in front of me,
Red Phonebox pendant hanging
From her handbag,
And she sits top deck
At the front
In the sunshine;
Resting her eyelids in
The love of a good man.

CALEDONIA ROAD
Still
As a moth
Masked as lichen
On a tombstone,
The headboard
Of the eternal sleep.
The poor house
Was too poor for a coffin
So a sheet
Tied at the top
Like a bad Halloween ghost,
As kids roam around
Outside the old cemetery walls,
In the Gorbals, chatter.

BRIGADOON
John McTavish
Signed by Hearts from Brigadoon Rovers…
The lad is festooned in tartan, which slows
Down his electric pace on the counter;
Also, his pipe takes his breath away
And compromises his
Short passing game.
He fell in love with a wag across the mist, and stepped into time.

CAMEO
The breeze has a cameo:
Footage
Of that girl at the bus-stop
Doesn’t exist,
But it blows just as sweetly
On the revellers
Leaving the club
Three years after you stopped dancing;
The DJ didn’t change the tunes;
It’s reassuring that the breeze is still
Out there,
Working its magic.

BLESSED
Everyday miracles,
The trace of the moon
When the sun is setting;
Eager for more earthly delights
A moth rattles on a lampshade
In the darkness
And in your hand become a dust
Like flour, blooming
With life.
A powder in the mirror
To life on the wing a buzz
What else do you need?

SCOTTISH LIVING ROOM
Living
In the living room?
Day’s news is all
Bluster
Until an old blockbuster
Grabs your attention.
I’m imagining the audience
In a 60s film;
What noise would be made
By clapping in 2019?
Were they thinking
Of chips, then bus home?
Ripped and faded like
Jeans, or a film poster.

COUCH TRIP
On the couch
A trip
Into darkness
Light has switched
To another part of the world
Sun up for someone
But the good book
Is put down
As the television light flickers
And thoughts turn
In a cycle
Back to the girl beside
Breathing in and out like a tide
Turning
Your memory 2
Sandy footprints.

WAX
Heavy rain
On the window
Beats like hooves
In a world before cars
Where a waxy jacket
Protects a man on his horse
Fleet of foot
Racing for warmth
In a tavern, clinking with life
Nobody thinking of becoming ghosts
As the candle burns
Into night.

LADY IN WAITING
In bed
Sunlight peeking
Under the blind;
Like a dog saying wake up.
In the other room
Things have changed;
It’s become productive
Your books, guitar, words
Are felt.
The bedroom is to recharge
It’s not hostile;
The day is not hostile
But what wonder will be received to
Fly by night.

LEAVING FOR CAMP
Train stations
Turned her stomach
Cows grazing on rolling fields
Cause an army fights on its stomach
The bull in the field
Eyeing you with the intensity
Of a soldier who has forgotten
Picnics in the country;
And it’s kill or be killed.
As the crow flies over
Fields of Dover clover.

STORM

Storm Ciara,
Sounds like a jolly
Hockeysticks hippy chick
Seeing the red mist
For seasons fogging up her glasses.
A popular poppet, into folk
Music which plays like stays
On a boat bobbing on a trip
To the coast. Tying her to some kind
Of feeling, forgotten in the morning rush.

PIGEONS

Pigeons tumble grey through skies
Breaking with golden light
Like a sunny side up morning
Or a light bulb sinking into cotton wool
The sandblasted buildings
Used to be a match for pigeon grey
But brutalist concrete and smog memories
Forget the iridescent neck
In snowdrop spring.

EVENING TIMES

Glasgow’s Miles Better,
Vinny the newspaper salesman
With sandpapered voice
Selling the Evening times.
The spirit of Harry Lauder
In old gents having a smoke
And who’ll talk to you at the bus stop.
Clickety Click, Margaret’s new hip
On a pilgrimage to Mecca.
All up in smoke. Regal.

SUNDAY MID WINTER

Mist descends
On the Glen
Hugging the trees
Like a bodywarmer,
Or a fur lined coat.
Somewhere out there
Is a fox’s den
Keeping warm
Till prey is brought.
The fields just breezily graze cattle
Or sheep, heads down
Same old day,
Dog walkers
Turn up their collar,
Think TV, then bed.

HERE AND NOW

The clock face
Of the church outside my window
Through the sycamore tree
Turns to silhouette.
Birds flit between bushes before
They cease to sing.
Pillars of salt tears
Drip down.
Many hands make lights work,
Street lights curling upwards
Towards the road to getting
The hell away.

THOMAS ROONEY SNR

Thomas Rooney
Coming down dark St Leonard’s Road
A chance encounter
As a silhouette took shape,
The orange lights on his leather coat.
He operated anti aircraft guns
Wonder if it crossed his mind
As he looked up at the stars.
His diary of his walks, precise
He knew his position.

STORMS FEB 2020

Grey skies ad nauseum
Grey pigeon,
Flapping its wooden wings.
Coffee table magazines have been turned over
Too often.
Radio bulletins on repeat.
Nothing new on television.
Grandstanding and Ceefax
As the results come in.
A day like this in the 80s.
Stir crazy, waiting for nothing.

SPRING, MARCH 2nd 2020

Dank and damp and cold,
Emerging,
From a suburban
Pine forest
Dark, see the light ahead,
Spring sunshine.

Reaching up and out like a mermaid
As the sunlight dances on the surface
Waves, buoyant,
Resounding like a dream of a shell
In your ear. Voices, clear and clean and kind.

STREET March 7th 2020

Street light
Highlighting rain.
Light on the surface of a puddle
Rippling.
Glow of a cigarette,
Moving. Man walks his dog,
Shivering in its fur.
A car’s headlights glare and glower
At the flats,
But it’s just a take away man
Genial. To be forgotten in the dark nights to come.

SCARECROW

The birds chirp.
Under a twisty white cloud,
Boughs have bounty
And starlings spring into action,
The salty earth is teaming
Up with the pollen air
And the day makes hay, while the sun shines.
Thoughts scattered, a scarecrow
Remembers what it’s there for,
But sun bathes instead.