I rolled my own tobacco tightly, lips pursed through a gormless grin,
As he, the idle Gean Canach, warming up, kisses a lonesome gin,
This dream as told to be his tonic - the bitter slice - so I begin...
Musing over beauty, his admirable hair, warholic an' fitted to wear,
Of Tartan-clad men whose ghosts have chequered stares,
An' Art, Free Speech, Faith, dipped in batter - much to his despair,
Of people, prickened purple as they blow a silent whistle,
To how the sun beams through heather-fields of shared pistols,
An' those scattered morsels of society, left to nothing but the gristle,
To how more questions than answers affect his whispered speech,
Yet he stirs mulling over youth and language receded to their peak,
'...Come, I'll walk you back to your hiding place – safely out of reach...!'
Back home to talk of MacDiarmid and McFarlan, to agree and feel solemn,
As he explains that a poisoned bee carries but only poisoning pollen,
An' how a love of our country, for its freedom, is all we have in common,
He tells of the tears from the Nationalist, nation-less, who lives in arrears,
Of the ink further dried on the receipt of forced union; of some 400 years,
An' that of my friend the leprechaun; ****** on the burnt grass that he shears,
An' now he exclaims - '… Swallow the pound..! Gulp on its hardened flesh...,
...We are as separate - the reluctant strawberry atop this eton mess...,
The majesty of our homes, as one, forever in a state of undress,
...We shall squander fortunes on entire pleasures dear to empty minds,
The resources of our country fixed to the crown with no benefit in kind,
Computerised Tesco's an' ****** at the BBC is all that we will find...'
It is time to take our leave; he has risen sharply an' yet crumbles into a seat,
The fires of the red sun burn for independence with stomping feet,
My dream recited, I wander still, and turn to the fools an' scoundrels on the street.
Imagined in conversation with Edwin Morgan.