(SR) 5: The Scotiad
THE SCOTIAD
When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake
We place our feet where they have never been
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?
Robert Bly
***********
PAISLEY
I’m cringing every time I see a proper Paisley tie,
I’d just popp’d ‘ungry into Greggs a hottish pie to buy
& chose a steak & kidney offer’d up for ninety pee,
I took the pie, she took the change, & said, “It’s ninety-three!”
I said, “Love, that’s false advertising,” stormin’ out the door,
But never mess wi’ Weegie Birds, they’re proper fuckin’ hard-core,
& leaping from her hum-drum she pursus me down the street,
Lookin’ as if an earthquake were shaking a slab of meat,
& panting now beside me squeez’d the pastie from my hands,
Smugging with satisfaction at her petty jobsworth’s stand
& turns her tail in triumph, as back to her shop she skips,
You coulda balanc’d ninety-three bridies on those fat hips,
Then looking down on what was left, my skin all bruis’d with mince,
I thought I’d catch the first train out – ain’t ever been back since!
***********
ARRAN ARRIVAL
Remember the moment Arran came real
Sat on a stone by a sunbathing seal
Perch’d on a pyramid, sea splash & splish
God, why dya put a dog’s head on a fish?
The eldest lay like lions oer the bay
The youngest lifts its heads & looks my way
Then shifted weight & slid into the sea
To settle on a shallow shelf near me
She knew I was a poet, I could tell,
Perhaps it was my solitary dell
Of silent thoughts, thro’ which I shall commune
Thro’ druid nature, with an ancient moon –
A sprig of scented streaming enters mind,
Future is real, the past a dream behind!
***********
GLEN ROSA
Following the bob of the deers’ heads guide
Scampering alane along the hillside
Not quite a goat, not even younger man
But, damn it, I shall do the best I can
As is the wont of jaunting sonneteer
Among these stones, where bones of mountaineer
Who died a lonely death, a broken pile,
Lies hidden in some crevice peristyle;
The smoothest rocks I’ve ever seen alain
Among the heather bells, all underneath
The poet peaks of Arran since I came
By strange force drawn, the one that governs fate
With gorse just yellow, heather yet to spate
Perch’d in a pure profundidty of thought
I feast upon this mansion for the eyes.
***********
THE SADDLE
Above Glen Sannox on a Summer’s Day,
The Samothracian Mysteries at play
Is this Olympus? This the Delphic vale?
A mythomeme? A dream? A fairytale?
A Cuckoo Call the only sound I’ll hear
But for the murmor of the burnbrook clear
Those stones upon the slopes are older than
The Laws of Zion & the Fall of Man!
A glance behind to townships of the coast
Across the waves, a dozen miles at most,
Reminds me I am mired in my times
Of Crashing Dreams & Cash Machines & Crimes
So, let me gaze again upon Goat Fell
Uprising like a divine citadel!
***********
GLEN SANNOX
With Gods of Arran I’ve come to commune
A Druid of the Realm & of the Moon
A Cuckoo Call the only sound I’ll hear
But for the murmour of the burnbrook clear
Those stones upon the slopes are older than
The Laws of Zion & the Fall of Man
While Pterodactyls once did line the ridge
That rocks square-block’d & saddleback’d have bridg’d
A glance behind to townships of the coast
Across the waves, a dozen miles at most,
Reminds me I am mired in my times
Of Crashing Dreams & Cash Machines & Crimes;
O! let me gaze again upon Goat Fell,
Uprising like a divine citadel
***********
THE BOGUILLE
Took a pill for a hill and a headwind,
What a thrill when the voyager starts,
Limbs laden with bags like a Bedouin,
Full of bedding and biscuits and charts!
As hauling the hill slope demands a
Huge effort of pedalling legs,
Downhill all the way to Lochranza,
To the inn and it’s tasty old kegs,
& a pint, as I wait for the ferry,
With a salad of radish and ham,
Wash’d down with a wee glass of sherry,
Finish’d off with a single malt dram;
Setting off, then, I felt rather merry,
Flying drunk and I don’t give a damn.
***********
KINTYRE
Far from the shock & shockwaves that inspire
Testosterone, that rages as an ape
Set in a dirty cage – this is Kintyre
Of pristeen, tranquil harbours – here escape
The rituals of bedlam, & retire
From vistas concrete, & fermenting grape –
Far from the shock & shockwaves that inspire
Testosterone, cag’d like a dirty ape!
O’ergaze to the gorgeous isle of Arran,
Where the mountains are dwarfing Pirnmill,
& the beige & the browns are all barren,
& the sea is incredibly still,
Where lumbers a boat, flowing slowly,
Over scenery poetry-holy.
***********
ISLAY
There is a calm of Islay, where far flew
First flourishings of Christianic gloss,
Who else but God could bring a peace so true,
In whose Son’s honour stands Kildotan’s Cross?
As breezes drop, & the sea-spray pure, a
Spirit passes twyx Islay & Jura,
What wilderness inspires the wand’rers eye
To tackle those rough paps before I die?
Convinced in the magnificence of now,
Of living things, & seeing life, & how
Complexities evanish like a sprite;
I AM a poet! Let these vows renew
On Carn na Faire, watching the birthing night
Compel the stars to crown this drastic view!
***********
GLEN COE
Before Glen Coe’s ghostly & ghastly peaks,
Lost Merlin lochs of savage Rannoch Moor
Move the soul to tears… challenge to surmount
Invites with topaz slopes, we park the car,
Pop a wee pill & begin the ascent,
An arduous climb, at first with no fear
& then with no choice as danger fills the way,
Soaked deep to the bones, soon greeted by our aim,
O perfect precipice, perching beneath the clouds
We pause a fine moment, eyes keen to the skies,
My love, these are the days of our lives,
World-keltering vista… East… West… breathtaking
But rains closing in now, lets begin the descent,
We bare-chested hill warriors in the breeze.
***********
MEALL AN FHEADAIIN
The feather-flux of life is strange in change
Blown zephyr-lite on random, breezy gusts
Or are they more than sheer coincidence
For on the birthday of the lass last loved
The first of hers I’d miss’d in all these years
I found myself alone at Altan Dhu
That treeless heap of heather, sheep & shore
With views to navigate the weary soul
Down wee mad roads to better harbours found
Where, squatting on the spot from far I felt,
Communion with my love-consumptive bride,
Then slipp’d a spot of silver perspective
Into my ain life’s ale, with rapid gusts,
Fair Sally blew the phantoms from my mind!
***********
SKYE
As Kestrels surf the mountain-fring’d spaces
Road twists between saturnine gargants,
Romantic mounds of monstrous magma,
Marvelous munros of aulden minstrel-song,
Lost in the moment, eyes keen to the skies,
Hard traveling unravels, sailing above us
Silver-fire mists of the sylvan alpine rise,
& beyond, entering the stunning scope
Of another planet, another Jupiter,
Sodden expanse of treeless waste,
But beautiful land, stupendous Cuillin hills,
Seats of Titans, where thrusting solar shafts
Induce startling notions of timelessness –
Here there is no time, only milky flowing waterfalls.
***********
SKYE BY NIGHT
The sun has set as steer & stereo
Accompany this mountain clansman land
Being a region ancyent eagles spann’d,
Some stoic slept, some capp’d with blocks of snow…
I found myself on the edge of civilization,
Not Tierra del Fuego or frozen Archangel,
But Portree, place to be, ‘metropolis’ of Skye,
Two thousand Highlanders sheep dip high,
The port seems far too quiet as we are drawn
To a clishmaclaving ceilidh at the Gathering Hall,
“Can we have a drink?” “I’m afraid ye cannae!”
Sally hands me the flyer; 28th annual
Isle of Skye Alcoholics Anonymous gathering –
Tonight’s theme… Tolerance… & the place is heaving.
***********
SHANGRI-LA
Eurasia, Eurasia, from tip to toe
Men may wander thee forever in vain
From the sensuous sierras of Spain
To the towers of spangling Tokyo
Men have stumbl’d thro’ Siberian snow
To the jungles where Ganges parts plain
Enough to send a troubadour insane
For Shangri-La a myth most never know.
Yet here lie the shores of Arabia
& the fjords of the Skull-helms of old
Here an angel-throne’d high Himalaya
& a castle of Prince Leopold
For here be defining Eurasia,
Reminding us with weathers manifold.
***********
NORTHERN SUNSET
As times have swung again to strike the road,
My eldritch muses glean a glint of gold,
Perhaps a mile away, perhaps abroad,
Shall I be searching, still, when I am old?
How gorgeous is the red sun as she sits
Upon the haunch of Hoy, the Pentland Firth
As glass tonight, no epic pitch of wits,
Twyx elements girdling this happy earth.
A bannock moon hangs over John o’Groats,
& Dunnet Head summons us to a path
That leads down from this pinnacle of sorts,
Along the sea-bash’d coast to wylde Cape Wrath.
Where I shall seek out rosaries once more
Tomorrow, yon this dreich Duncansby bore.
Mumble Words 