See her,
skinny lassie -
so aware,
stood there
at the counter.

The eyes
lifted from papers,
hooded and guilty,
leering
under sunglasses.

She knows nothing,
thinks
she's in charge.
Bless her.
Whatever's going to break her
hasn't happened yet.

Makes me shudder,
the thought.
The painful innocence.
"Just a fruit smoothie, please!"
she sparkles
at the man.
Thinks his approval
is unloaded,
worth seeking.

No eyes on me.
Glances fall off me.
If I catch a look,
I see it turn
to embarrassment,
pity
or scorn.

Firing blanks, guys.
I'll take those
over possessiveness,
lust,
crawling promises.
Over saccharine
strychnine
strangler smiles,
over violence, veiled
as love.
Your attention is toxic.
Better show it as such.

"Chips and cheese, please,"
I wheeze,
and his sneer
is a klaxon
of cruel jokes
he'll share with colleagues later.

Those
are the tiny victories
of victimhood,
as the twirling girl inside
stays protected,
unsuspected.

For a modest subscription -
say, £100 a month -
you can receive my weekly newsletter
outlining the manner in which I undertake
to steal your jobs,
besmirch your womenfolk
(or menfolk, if you like),
impose my religion upon you,
undermine your financial system,
eat the swans in your local park,
raise/lower house prices (as your current need dictates),
contribute to a nameless sense of dread,
dilute your cherished national identity
and produce more illiterate children than the welfare state
can reasonably support.

I will do you this service
on the understanding
that you will stop attributing blame
to your undeserving neighbours
and get on with your life
like a decent human being.

Susi sees angels here and there
magical creatures are everywhere
I canny see them, I try and look twice
I kind of regret it, it must be nice

but I think
Why should I personify
my sense of wonder,
sense of wonder
I laugh beneath the starlit sky
with my sense of wonder
sense of wonder

Ewan sees reason in everything
knows you can measure pieces of string
and he is my brother I love and respect
and proof of the other we've never found yet

but I think
Why should I categorize
my sense of wonder
sense of wonder
I laugh beneath the starlit skies
with my sense of wonder
sense of wonder

And I salute you, one and all
who've seen the light, who've heard the call
I'll not dispute what you have seen
I'm just not certain what you mean

Susi's a human, as sweet as can be
and magic or not she's amazing to me
and whether we're born here blessed or alone
I hope that her angels will see her home

but still think
Why should I personify my sense of wonder
sense of wonder
I laugh beneath the starlit sky
with my sense of wonder
sense of wonder
sense of wonder

You know the feeling
when you toss someone a key,
a coin
or a compliment
and someone else leaps in the way
and snatches it from the air?

The unintended catcher,
however swift of reflex
and waggish of humour
has broken the spell,
interrupted the communication

This came to mind
when I heard
that my album was playing in the sandwich shop
to a cluster of hungry strangers.
And songs
which I had crafted
for a certain small collective

now hung heavy
with the smell of frying bacon
and the unasked impressions
of the wrong crowd.

Tours depart at 7.30,
in time to reach the office by 9.
En route, keen-eyed travellers
search faces, gaits
and speculate on destinations.
There are no prizes
but you will experience a cold satisfaction
with every success.
Most prized
are the ones who hide
behind a guise of bluff normality.
It takes a real expert
to catch the tiny glint of fear,
the too-quick reflexive start
at any human contact,
the unwillingness to meet the gaze
of their own reflections.
But persevere
and you too can add to your list.
The longer your list
the less likely you are
to appear
on someone else's.

Look,
you can surely tell
that I feel the indignity of the situation
by the way I cannot meet your eye.
Yes, I look ridiculous,
but nature has called
and I must answer.
**** to a tree,
heels on the ground,
vulnerable -
it's not the image
my wolfen ancestors
would wish you to observe.

No, I'm no great fan
of the substance I produce,
but you needn't wrinkle your nose -
it was you who led me here, after all,
and I'm sure yours is no sweeter.

I'll make you a deal:
you avert your eyes
while I take care of this
and I'll avert mine
and pretend not to notice
when you pick it up carefully in a bag
and carry it around.

A black maid enters.
Cowed, inarticulate,
she makes obeisance to her mistress,
our erstwhile heroine.

She is given a menial task
in a perfunctory fashion,
and you thrill at this splash
of historical colour.

But her mistress's command
is irrelevant.  She is fully engaged
with two vital functions
with which I have entrusted her.

The first: she has bathed our heroes
in moral ambiguity -
she is a shortcut to complexity,
rendering the important characters
doubly fascinating,
bathing them in pathos.

The second: she has pleased you
as you recognise your own outrage:
"Why must she be black?
Why can't they treat her better?
Don't we live in finer times, you and I?"
And a happy reader
is a reader who will proceed,
enlivened, vindicated, affirmed.

And thus freshly enslaved,
she returns
to the sculleries of my imagination
as we press nobly on.

"They say it's the tallest in the country, you know,"
the older man smiles.
His companion's eyes follow the trunk,
smooth and sheer, to the clouds
in wonder.
The topmost branches sway
and he feels himself adrift
beneath a giant mast,
sails flapping on the wind
as feathered cirrus fly through the blue beyond.

Just then a carriage bursts through the forest
causing them to leap from the path.
A bilious face glares out from inside.
"Mind out the ****** way
"Or I'll have you clapped in irons!"
scream the spit-spattered lips,
chins a-wobble petulantly above a too-tight collar.

"Begging your pardon, your grace,"
says the older man, doffing his cap and bowing
as the carriage careers on.

The young man is speechless with fury.
"*******!" he screams.
"*******!"
But the old man is clutching his sides with mirth.

"How can you laugh?
"That fat pig nearly killed us!"
The boy's agitation is making him dance.
"Clapped in irons for looking at a tree?"

"No, no," chuckles the older, "for looking at his tree!
"The height that leads our eyes
"Up towards heaven
"casts a long shadow over his wallet
"And the weight which fills us with awe and joy
"presses on his shoulders every day!
"Ownership is a terrible thing, my lad!"

And they make their way home,
free,
through the forest,
their forest,
laughing.

"So, gentlemen," begins the chair
"Our star property is developing.
She's past the stage of 'Girl Next Door' charm,
and we need to know
how to sell her new album.
Suggestions?"  A silence.

"I know," says one, "she's very keen
on stage and theatre.
Perhaps a Shakespearean theme?"
There are murmurs,
but little enthusiasm.
Another pipes up.
"I understand she has an interest in ecology.
Could we be thinking nature?  Conservation?"
"I think not," says the chair, "though the subtexts
in her songs are clear.  No,
we're missing something obvious.
There HAS to be a way."

Chins are rubbed,
heads scratched.  Ideas rejected thick and fast -
Literature?  No.
Politics?  No.
One points out her skill as a painter,
but it is felt that art can be rather subjective.

At last, one young turk
slowly pushes his chair back,
the light of inspiration on his keen young face.
All eyes turn to him in anticipation
as he slowly stands,
spreading smile and spreading hands.

"I've GOT it!" he cries.
"Why don't we market her as a galloping *****?"

The board room collapses
in ecstatic applause,
and the young man seals his fate
as the label's next creative director.

If ever the internal chatter threatens to cease
and the Clear White Light begins to encroach;
if the nail-biting, jaw-grinding, hackle-rising clamour
starts to give way to the humming tranquility of Truth,
where boundaries dissolve
and language lies in redundant, grateful sleep

Some internal reflex snaps me back into distraction,
relentlessly revs the engine
and spray-paints ugly slogans across
enlightenment's helpless face.

I used to resent this, and see it as a weakness.
Now I am profoundly grateful.
It's not the unfettered truth I couldn't bear,
it's the moral obligation to share it
when the dawn rises on another normal day
and you carry the burden alone
through careless crowds, wondering
what the hell
you're supposed to do with it.

There is always someone
to say, "Ah, but..."
when we weep
at little tragedies.
Striding gurus
whose far-reaching sight
passes over little corpses
to seek out the Big Picture.
And you dry your eyes
and you feel foolish
for thinking little ones matter.

Big names are tossed around.
Patterns passing back
through blackened ages
History degrees
dusted off,
chins stroked,
lofty knowledge
powerfully deployed

Churchill manifests
all black and white and grim.
Roosevelt and Stalin,
and this is why,
and that is why,
and further back
to Empire and beyond.

Until it all makes sense.
It's good versus evil
eternal, universal
and nothing to be troubled by.

But still
the little corpses
in your path.

Hunkered down
against tides and waves
they allow themselves
a certain satisfaction

Cold currents surge past,
bringing them all they need
shifting them not one jot

But in those currents
their own young course and swirl
adrift, alive,
gauntlet-running,
glorious

And the barnacles wonder
whether they may, perhaps,
be missing something.

"I will save you from the wolves," he said,
his yellow eyes a-glinting,
his grinning fangs a-glisten,
"I will save you now, my dear!"
And so, ragged from the forest
and the grief of lost companions
With backward glance, she stumbled
through the door.

And beyond the rugged walls
she heard a million voices howling
and a million jaws were gnashing
like a thunder in her head
Till he raised a howl in answer
and he took a step towards her,
"I will save you from the wolves, my dear,"
he said.

Whoa.

See that yin?
Jist sittin there?
Ye ken how she’s sittin like that, don’t ye?
Well, whit’s she sittin oan?
Aye, her erse.
She’s only sittin like that
So ye ken she’s got an erse.
Gaggin fir it.

An whoa, check that yin!
Wearin claes!
Filthy cow!
Whit dae ye mean, “Whit dae ah mean”?
Claes!
Ye canny wear claes
If ye huvny got a boady, can ye?
That’s right –
Just screamin it, so she is –
“Check oot ma boady!”

Aye, ah wull an aw!
Don’t mind if ah dae!

Aw, mate – that yin!
That yin ower there!
Bendin her airm!
See her?
Bendin her airm like a mucky ****!
That’s so ye ken
She’s got elbows!
Phwoar, I ken your type hen –
you wi yir elbows an a’thin!
Desperate fur it, aren’t ye?

An man!  This yin,
walkin towards us!
Breathin in an oot!
Whit a slapper!
Breathin in an oot!
Aye, ye need a pair o lungs tae dae that,
I bet, eh, hen?
A pair o fine, functioning lungs!
Aye, you use them, doll –
dinny you be shy!
Ah’m no!

Aw pal, haud me back!
This yin!
This yin eatin a meat pie!
Shameless wee ****!
Aw yeah, baby,
I ken whit that means!
Mean’s ye’ve got yirsel
a **** wee digestive tract in there, no?
Ye dinny hae tae spell it oot tae me, love!
Probably got a pair o kidneys
tucked away in there too,
ye ***** wee *****!

Aw the same, ur they no?
Aw ae thum.
Gantin oan it.

Put past
The pretence of protection.
Propagandising
her preciousness
is prohibited -
proprietorial
preparation
for *******.
Parents paw
the pretty pretty
Pa approves the partner
partner plucks the petals,
proclaiming
‘She pleases me,
pleases me not’ -
matters not one jot.
Pet and preen
her perilous perfection
a prophylactic
precaution,
in place
of progression,
promotion,
professional appreciation.
Proud paternalistic patter
imprisons.
Presidents pronounce
on *****,
parroted by ******
and pissheads.
Petty, pathetic
and petrified
of power,
placing people
in parentheses
participating
in playground politics.

I’m sick
that this
paralysis
persists.
Past to present,
passed down
passed over
passed off
as perfectly
practical, natural,
a place for everyone
everyone
in place.
Please.

Parade our pride
in pyrotechnic protest
in partnership perpetual,
productive, progressive
people
as people
as people,

powerful
and equal.

In line with recent policy
we are outsourcing
our poetry services
in a bid to increase efficiency

This will make savings
and improve the service
just as it always does.

Daffodils

Out a walk
saw some flowers
there were loads of them
they were quite pretty

APPROVED

Dulce et Decorum Est

War's *******
and it's no fun
being gassed

APPROVED

To a Mouse

Sorry for wrecking your house, mouse
but we've all got problems

APPROVED

The Raven

I miss my bird

APPROVED

Startled by the crack they launch,
spread wings and soar
through rising summer breeze

Perfect black symmetry
wingtip to wingtip
recalling the first flight of courtship
seven years before

Circle the ripening corn
living the wind
feeling the sky
tilt, turn, circle again

Black eyes cast below
they see a figure,
watching, waiting
rifle lowered, patient

And she begins to falter
to mistrust the surging sky
her element, suddenly unmastered

He is oblivious, effortless.
Spiralling, alighting,
he turns his curious gaze
to seek his mate

And finds only empty blue
where she should be.

You're ******* in time ticking choices away
white light fills the night till its brighter than day
cacophonous voices can say what they say
from the dusk till the meaningless dawn
Then secured by a seatbelt to leather and foam
the speedo's at zero six yards from your home
a million neighbours, completely alone
you're a shell, you're a shade, you're a pawn
But glance through the windscreen and look at the sky
a seagull, suspended, is catching your eye
you sense a connection but cannot say why
as it tilts on the wind and is gone
Then the trees you drive under are sharpened and clear
they're humming and pulsing beneath the veneer
you're dazed and confused as you shift up a gear
dumbly wondering what's going on
You turn on the satnav for guidance and sound
but its whisper can't silence this thing you have found
from the shimmering clouds to the roots of the ground
Is a force that is ancient and new
You try to pretend like a terrified child
that the world can be binary indexed and filed
and the sparkling eye of the jackdawish wild
isn't focused intently on you
But there is no denying this fluttering clutch
that is moss-furred and feathered, a hurricane touch
that you knew long ago and you've missed it so much
with a longing that's howling and black
But she's patiently stationed there just out of sight
as you've built your resistance from pixel and byte
Rebellious teenager, pitiful plight
she is waiting to welcome you back
Yes Nature is waiting to welcome you back
She's beneath every slab and behind every crack
at the nethermost end of the bitterest track
she is waiting to welcome you back
Forever forgiving, unloosed unconfined
she is mad she is chaos she's love and she's blind
volcanic voluptuous core of mankind
she is waiting to welcome you back.

Skinned knee, tree-barked knuckles,
fights in the long grass pal.
Friends so long that we've our own,
private language
(which renders these public outpourings
largely irrelevant)
and can go years, now,
with no contact
yet never really be apart.

Last Christmas we hooked up,
marvelled at the passing of time,
and you recalled that the last time we met
I gave you a book of my poems.

"Did you read them?" I asked,
and brilliantly, unembarrassed,
you replied:
"No.  I looked at the first one,
saw that it went over the page,
thought: 'Oh, that's long -
I'll read that later,'
but I never did."  
And we laughed uproariously
as I seldom do with anyone else.

But I know
that long after every other copy
has been thumbed ragged,
misplaced,
passed on
and lost
your copy will remain
pristine and safe
on your shelf

Because although you have
no more interest in poetry now
than either of us did at the age of eleven,
you'll look after it
because your pal wrote it.

It came from small beginnings.
A shaken woman left her car, engine still running
To see whether or not she had killed the rabbit.
Soft and broken it lay, and she wept, when suddenly
The rabbit drew its final breath
And spoke.
"Don't worry," it said.
"You humans, you're too sentimental!
"You should know, we admire you so much
"That it is a great honour to die at your hands
"Or through the speed of your magnificent machines!"

The woman was startled.

The phenomenon spread around the globe.
In the middle of the South China Sea
A fisherman was greeted by a cheer from his catch.
"Well done!  Well done!" they cried.
"Next time use a smaller mesh, you'll catch more!"

In a chicken battery in Idaho, a young labourer
Whose conscience was troubling him
Almost fainted when 60,000 chickens sang
"For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!" and thanked him for his kindness.

"We are here for you!" said a turtle, choking on a plastic bag.
"You have dominion - use it with pride!" cried a pack-laden donkey.
"We are nothing without your interest - catch us, keep us, eat us, please!"

Tabloids were quick to react.
"One in the eye for the Animal Liberationists,"
said the Daily Mail.

For 24 hours the animals spoke
and then they stopped.
And because their voices
had been strained and strange,
feather muffled and furred,
wrung from throats with no vocal chords
It was impossible to be sure
Whether or not
they were being sarcastic.

The mother of invention lies asleep
and sated yet again beside the fire
It’s no surprise she should so quickly tire
Restrained by offspring turning us to sheep

Our need to overcome, explained, expires
And we , too tired to weep, feign boundless joy
For what we’ve lost and gained - each wretched toy
We keep can strangle resource in its wires

And rendered gutless, idle hoi polloi
we stagger dumbly higher, grinning, keep
believing we could buoy her from her sleep
Ignite her brain, and our minds re-deploy.

The sea pulled in its gut for me
to show its rugged, rockpooled shore
then at the turning of the tide
exhaled and overflowed once more.

He lies on his back
creaky bed, darkened room
and wonders how he would be
if he had chosen differently.

Mind goes fractal
like Russian dolls
he thinks outwards
but really in

Oh imagine!
Nerves tingle -
what an original thinker he is:
There must be millions
of alternative mes
in unreachable universes
and untold dimensions!

Of course,
if he weren't too busy
contemplating his navel
all he'd have to do to find them
is knock on his neighbours' doors.

Friend, you stumble.
Can I help with your load?

Aye, pal, cheers -
budge up, everyone,
here's a new friend!

This is heavy.
Unbearable.
What is this thing
you all carry?

We're carrying the dragon,
pal.
Carrying the dragon.

Dragon?
From whence came
a dragon?

Ehm, not too sure -
our fathers summoned it,
we think.

Oh, its weight!
How have you managed
for so long?

No secret there, pal -
love.  Love,
and brotherhood.
We all chip in, know?

But does the dragon
not eat you?
It writhes on my shoulders
most disagreeably.

No, no,
canny eat you
if you're carrying it.

But it must eat!
It is bloated
and gorged
beyond movement!

Aye, well,
why do think we carry it?

So what does it eat?

I..  We...
We don't really think
too much about that.
We have each other
to worry about.

And what would happen
if you just laid it down?

It would die.
We would lose
all the meaning
from our lives.

I see.
Then come, brothers -
let us carry on.
Let us carry on
and on.

I had the bottle
I had the well
I had the population
and the cold interest
in consequences.

So simple:
tip it in, see what happens.
But it would have been too obvious.
I was not interested in being caught.

It gnawed at me,
for all my polished indifference,
the knowledge of the power I wielded
but could not use

Then one day
strangers came,
rolling into the village
in their painted caravans

And I wasted not one second.
As soon as the moon was full
I crept out
through the villagers' suspicious mutterings,
unseen by the baleful glances
cast at the foreign shapes and colours -
forgotten, in all my oddness,
in the wake of this new devilry.

It was the work of a moment,
a soft sound like summer's rain
then back to the shadows
to wait.

And now,
riding past the lynch-mob's clumsy justice,
circled by merry crows,
briefly entranced
by a burnt-out caravan

I can finally
enjoy
the silence.

Money wants to be spent.
It sits in your pocket and bellows at you,
it tugs you into shops and boutiques
and weighs so heavy on your mind
that you gasp with relief
to be rid of it.

I don't like this, but I get it:
I accept the hypnosis
and resist when I can,
and perhaps it oils the system
which keeps me comfortable.

But I am fearful that our feel for time
is going the same way.
Hours are things to dispose of:
days, once spent, are lost and gone:
all our energies ****** us on
to the next thing, and the next.

There is no sense
of accumulation,
no glorying in the growth
of knowledge, experience, wisdom.
No respect for things which have been
and thus we shuttle, rudderless and dumb,
Barren, and infinitely poor.

We lay on a single bunk,
gazing at each other under African sunlight
not yet lovers, but going that way.

"You're beautiful," she said after a while
and I believed her
but wanting to give her credit
for all that was good in me
I replied,
"It's a reflection!"

                     Except -
Despite my tan,
despite the rainbow racket of  parrots outside,
despite my travel-broadened mind,
I still carried a heart
nurtured in Aberdeen,
that grey-granite reservation in North East Scotland
where true emotion may only be expressed
after fifteen pints and a dram.
                So,
by way of a padded brown envelope
in which to hand over this pure, unselfish thought
I said it
in a silly voice.

These days she doesn't even write.

Me?  I'm married
to a woman who finds me
kind of funny looking
but in an agreeable way.

It's a reflection.

Oh my
how they flap and slither
shades of shades of
ghastly crassness

Haven't harnessed
their atoms' fickle spins
spilling, instead,
through the strong and wise and deserving
befouling their blood

Gulping and gaping their own small slice of evil
while we will guard ours
in cages of guilt and fantasy

Spill then
spill slickly,
sick, stupid spectres
You strengthen my bars
beyond imagining

Move to a small town
and stand on the corner
for twenty minutes.

So, you grew up,
leaving me Peter Panning for gold
amongst the grit of adulthood.
Your guitar gathers dignified dust,
while mine puffs and wheezes
yet another senile song,
an arthritic dog
treading painfully in step
with its selfish, thoughtless master.

I never envied you your brilliance
because it was shared, it was ours
but I've been toasting marshmallows on the embers
far too long.

And now your real life,
the one you've worked for, studied for,
sweated for
(and the one I've studiously ignored)
is to carry you over the sea
and away.
I have no doubt it is still your brilliance
that paves the trail,
But it's for others, now
and that is fine.
I am reconciled,
and full of hope for you and yours.

Let's see now:

G, B minor, C...

There's a song in here somewhere,
I know it.

Briefly entranced
by a swish of hips
as they sashay past a doorman,
he takes a breath, approaches
and asks to get through.

"Sorry sir," the tall man says,
"your purchasing record suggests
"that you dislike jazz.
"I think you'd better move along."

Of course, of course,
what was he thinking?
A narrow escape, that.
And on home through the empty streets he goes,
Untroubled by the wide wild sounds,
the horns and pianos,
the reckless freeform blast and chatter
that might ruthlessly have smashed through
his carefully constructed identity.

Safe at home,
his television allows him to watch
a comedy he has seen thirteen times before
and so must really love.

I suppose it was
an act of mercy.
"Put him
with the other Earthlings!"
Dragged
down strip-lit corridors
a million miles
from home.

At last
they cast me
in a gloomy cell
with a woodlouse,
a guava
and a chanterelle mushroom.

I appreciated the thought,
but we had little in common
and an awkward silence reigned.

Marooned on a desert island
the boys sit patiently
waiting for a mobile signal.

At last, the bolder ones set out
in search of free wi-fi,
while the boffin tries to figure out
the cheat mode which will release them.

Food in trees
remains inaccessible
in the absence of ropes and harnesses
- these lads know their health and safety.

Slowly fading, bitter, helpless
the children fantasize
about who they can sue over this fiasco.

Piggy is the last one standing
for obvious reasons.

It's time
to stop complaining
and move on.

I did
what was necessary
to win.

That makes me smart.

You know,
lots of things
get said and done
during a race.

But the only thing that matters
is the result.

So I'll have
those trophies back,
please.

We reach for things where once they were
and grasp, confused, at empty air
And try to catch the time we've missed
by glancing at a watchless wrist

We follow patterns long since drawn
although the artist's dead and gone
We pantomime a lack of care
but reach for things which are not there.

It was so constant in my youth.
It breathed through my childhood,
totally unnoticed, taken for granted
like motherly love
or hot water on tap.

Just there -

there when the curtains were closed
on the city-lit night;
there at the breakfast table;
on the long walk to school.

But time passed, and it troubled me.
Where had it come from?
What was it for?
Did everyone have one?
And these musings turned delicious,
colouring idle moments
with all the shades of sunset,
and the doubt became bigger
than the thing itself.

At last there was no room,
no time for the questions,
no time for the Okker,
and with no warning
it was gone.

First time I rode my bicycle by myself
I thought my father was still pushing me
and by the time I noticed he was not
I didn't need him anymore.
And so it was, now,
coasting onwards,
busy without mystery
and content with the visible.

I knew people who scorned seekers,
but I didn't.
I remembered, paternally indulgent,
the hours I had spent
swimming in the deep cool pools
of uncertainty
to arrive at my current quiet wisdom
and I understood.

Or so I thought.

Fifteen years dead, but
Last night, something -
the sound of crickets in a film,
the smell of cut grass on an open window breeze,
a picture on page 136
of a childhood book - something
woke it up.  

And now smoke
is filling the room
blotting the windows
filling my eyes, ears and lungs
malignant, demanding,
but full
of terrifying joy.

Me and Ewan,
him eight, me five
up at the big woodies.

Big boys approach.
There were bad boys
at the big woodies, we knew,
but these seem friendly.

They talk to us.
I know to be polite
to people who talk to you.

"Is your dad gay?"
they ask.
I don't know
why they're interested
in my dad's disposition,
but I answer,
"Yes."

Ewan, more worldly,
nudges me,
agitated.
"What?"
I ask.
"He is.  Usually."

The big boys
are delighted
and wander off,
their work accomplished.

If I could time-jump,
I would reoccupy my head
with more knowledge
than I had at five.

I would say,
"If you mean 'happy',
then yes.
If you mean 'homosexual',
then no.
Not as far as I know."

I think that might perplex them.

Me and Robin
rockhopping
round seaweeded,
barnacled beaches
where the river
shakes hands
with the sea

When up pops an otter.
Straight out the silver waves
it comes
and starts chattering at us
in Japanese.

I scratch my head.
Robin looks baffled.
The otter is urgently
incomprehensible.

We look around
on the offchance
that a Japanese tourist might be around
and willing to translate,
but we're the only ones there.

"I wish my dad was here,"
I say,
"Or Auntie Lynn,"
adds Robin,
but they're not
and we lack their talent
for languages.

We try our best
with shrugs and gestures
but all we have is apologies.

Eventually,
with a tetchy 'sayonara',
the otter slips back through the waves
leaving us
none the wiser.

So many of us
beaten, heart-wrung care
we share
our hopelessness
our impotent despair
our seismic horror
mounting terror
as nations pile mistake
on fatal error
How do we act
as casualties mount
how do we hold our blighted leaders
to account

We trawl through history
and weakly portion blame
make claim on pointless claim
to show that we began this game
That this was us, and that was them
but all this does
is set the process off again
And little comfort,
stating that we cared
in lieu of just confessing
we are scared

Scared that in the loneliness of night
a sneaking voice
might say this choice was right
that self-defense
is justified
that editors and leaders
can't have lied
that evil really stalks us,
really walks our streets
plots our defeat, prepares
to hoist black flags
into the air.

It does, and always has.
The name may change
but nothing of this crisis
is so strange.
Cry anarchy, revolt
pledge blood to the republic
**** the vote
don masks and balaclavas,
meet in shade
believe this is the place
where deals are made
And soon, to fan eternal conflagration
someone will bring a god
to the equation,
proclaim a nation,
proclaim the right of judgement,
who should live
and who should die
And in the dancing flames,
raise eyes
to thank the empty,
mindless sky.

But what is worst,
among the frantic, wretched cries
is that our comfort
lets us view it with surprise
our safety, compromised
exposes this malignant myeloma -
we feel that we
should never die.
We should not suffer,
should exist
in numb, eternal safety,
empty bliss
no cold, no hunger,
conflict frowned upon
All struggle gone -
we should go on
and on
and on.

But breathe.
Feel echoes, ripples, tremors -
close frightened eyes
and just remember -
this is the road that we are always on
We found it on arrival,
leave it when we're gone
but our survival
is unhindered.
While fools break splinters
from its rugged bones,
we still lay bigger, stronger stones.

This is the world.
Love fiercely, dare
to shout in anger,
weep in care, do all you can
to help your fellow woman,
fellow man
to shatter walls, to build
together, better, wiser things
Prepare
to sacrifice, to will a world as one
and know that evil done
can be undone

Do not succumb
to cold, immobile fear
but shout, in righteous fury,
"We are here!"

You won't remember this
but we played together as boys, you and I
in the woods of Scotland
on the streets of Damascus

Sticks for machine guns
crab apple hand grenades
direct hit, count to ten
then up again

Your mother was kind, I recall
would berate you for lacking my polished manners
while my mother, of course,
would hold you up
as a shining example to me.

And though it has been years
have we ever been apart?
The peace upon you now
has been upon us both all along
as we have traced this warm collision
through all our separate, numbered days

Count to ten, old friend.
Count to ten
and up again.

Someone has defaced my library book.
Gone to the trouble of reading, pencil in hand,
ready should the opportunity arise again.
The graffiti is hilariously specific:
at every mention the author makes of England,
my fellow reader has added angry punctuation -
question marks, exclamation marks or,
at moments of presumed frustration,
simply scored the word through.
The book is by Kurt Vonnegut,
an American humanist
who would doubtless have sought to avoid such deep offense
but who would have had no earthly reason for imagining
that a Scot somewhere, years after his death,
would ignore the story,
the tragedy, the humour and the beauty in the prose
so fired up was he by his conviction
that Kurt should have written 'Britain' instead of 'England'.

You see,
proud Scots are often peeved
when the rest of the world pays as little attention to them
as they pay to the rest of the world.
So it goes.

Historical fiction -
that's where it's at.
Quite fancy writing
about Roman Britain.

A native kid, say,
growing up
in the shadow
of the legions.

I describe
an imagined feast
to my pal,
who pulls me up short.

"They didny hae tatties
in Roman times.
They're fae America,
ken?"

And I'm grateful,
but I'll struggle to base
a bestselling trilogy
on an absence of potatoes.

Like a rabbit from a hat
Like a bouquet from a sleeve
You appear, and just like that
You pull poetry from me.

The grunt and swagger
is there, now, at the age of eleven -
the knowledge that, physically bigger,
his will can be enforced
without wit or compassion.

Worse than this,
she acquiesces,
any attention better than none.
And observing this graceless parody
of adulthood,
I feel sudden vertigo
gazing down the hopeless years

I want to bellow,
"Be unbridled!  There's more to life
than servitude!"
But she trusts the empty affirmation
she has been trained
to aspire to -
she's worth it.

Silly old man.
You don't understand
the world anymore.
We tried emancipation and equality
and it wasn't for us,
so stop confusing the kids
and let them be.

After the act,
where do you go?

Plans, meticulous plans
executed expertly.
Comrades martyred,
wheels in motion,
all is as expected.

But you.
Commander no more.
Comrade no more.
Those who groomed
and trained you,
are on to fresher meat.

Hunted, hated
you run,
but where?

Me, I could trust
to bold humanity:
could hope for help
in darkest need.
This is simply
what we do.

But you are broken,
and I wonder:

Does your faith warm you
in ditches?
Do rain and hunger fade
in the light
of your great sacrifice?

At three a.m.
does the fact that you,
like any fool,
can **** with a gun,
compensate for barred doors,
cold windows,
closed faces glazed
in baffled fury?

No touch
but a fanatic's.
No love
unchained by dogma.
No hope.

My poor brother.
No hope.

You wear your presence lightly,
you politely undermine it
for the folks who'd find it fright'ning
in the normal daily grind
You are jocular and flighty
wear a self-effacing grace
although your shoulders might be mighty
were they not so undermined

We met at a rehearsal
for an amateur dramatic act
to shrink the universal
to a comfortable size
They took a work of genius
the timeless peerless grandeur
and they whittled it to meaninglessness -
There I caught your eye.

"I hear you need a drummer!"
you intoned in toffee baritone
and sad, diluted Shakespeare
did evaporate tout suite
"We're gigging in the summer!"
I replied in my delight and then
I knew I'd found a friend
who might just help me keep the beat.

I found you were an artist
of broken, brittle beauty
who believed an artists' duty
was to challenge and defy
Who had washed up in the genteel
artists' village of Kircudbright
where the art is safe and snooty,
boats and trees and sunny sky

But your canvas is elastic
is electric and eclectic
as you drastically cast an angry
eye across it all
Any prettiness is sitting
on a nauseous unwellness
where the skeleton of Elvis
boogies by a butcher's stall

Well we found some fellow feeling
in our mutual defiance
casting darts at art and science
and amusing just ourselves
Made some music, sank some bevvies
wrote a book, got raging drunk
but what we managed withered, shrunk
by what we planned and simply shelved.

Well it seems that I've been hoping
that our business was unfinished
that our plans were undiminished
by the passing of the years
That some catalyst would manifest
and shake us into action
dissipate the dull distraction
of the daily hopes and fears.

But it seems that you are leaving
that your talent, brightly blazing
and the fact that you're amazing
has been missed by this wee town
Well I undersand it, ******
but I'll miss you now, my brother
and the tumbled jumbled colour
that you spun from Solway brown.

my fingers felt
that new horizons beckoned
and dropped off, one
by one

my eyes, grown tired
of servicing my brain
popped out
and rolled into blind oblivion

my tongue
has slithered off
flicking foolishly,
untasting

they are lost, and rot
and I am poor, and broken

We were one
but now
we are nothing.

The strange thing is,
it wasn't there on the day.
I'm sure of it.
Ben MacDui, April, 1993:
cloudless, blue, glorious.
Three boys out from the city,
out from the flat grey sprawl,
shouting and laughing
into the giant empty sky.
We were there by the grace of two kind men,
teachers,
who knew of greater things
than the classroom had to offer.

But now,
looking back,
the cloud has descended.
For every three of my footsteps,
one chilling, giant crunch rings out
in restless pursuit.
Shadows are cast across clouds
that simply were not there
and an unconditioned joy cowers
beneath the brocken spectre,
the Big Grey Man that followed
unseen, unguessed, and uninvited.

A swan splits the stillness of the old mill pond
in the long low light of morning
White frost has settled on the bank behind
and on a figure who is sitting
head held in his hands

He looks at the moon as it fades away
from silver into nothing
His breath hangs like mist around his old grey head
and his cloudy eyes aren't blinking

And he can't recall how he got here
or the world he left behind
and his tracks in the grass they are fading fast
from the ground and from his mind

His feet are in slippers and an old bath-robe
is hanging round his shoulders
His cheeks they are flushed as if he's safe and warm
though he couldn't be much colder
fading away

He may look foolish but he is no fool
for coming here today
For the cold grey bank becomes a time-machine
and the years just fall away
fall away

Annabel, the sun shines just for you
This moment here will make the year come true
And I can't believe my eyes
when you turn to me and smile
you take my breath away, that's what you do
In this gold, this gold
this golden afternoon

Now you strip and slip through the ripples of the old mill pond
And you laugh at the fact of the scandal in the town beyond
But if they could only see the way you laugh and look at me today
They'd be caught in the moment like you'd waved a magic wand
Oh Annabel my love

His son and his daughter are the first to hear
and they think it is a kindness
Long gone was the father they had known and loved
and this living loss they'd witnessed
Now they can rest

The men from the council say the pond must go
and they fill it in that winter
But ears to the ground you can still hear the sound
of a young man and his lover
as they laugh and swim together
in the golden summer weather
the way
they will stay
forever.

This one's on the house, Theresa.
The unifying symbol
you've failed in any way to muster.
Here he is, look -
chain mail and charger,
leonic triptych
boldly bronzed.
You stirred yet?
Heart skipping a beat?

He gave
not one ****
about England.
***** and pillaged his way
through foreign fields.
Beggared a nation
to maintain his position.
"I'd sell London,
if I could find a buyer!"
Is this guy
a patron saint
or what?

When Churchill falters
or the Queen quails,
Tie Richard to the mast
and whip him into use.
I'm sure
your old Etonians
will be happy to assist.

Nocht tae dae wi Scotia, like,
but we're good
at falling into line.