(SR) 6: The Lothiad
THE LOTHIAD
Enchanting. It will make a delightful summer capital when we invade Britain
Dr Joseph Goebells
*****
EAST BANK
I found myself alive off Easter Road,
A warm, spring sun lighting this little room
My long muse-lust has left me to afford.
Dust particles danced from the shadow-gloom,
Uprousing me to Reekie’s sweeping streets,
Some orphan up an open New Town flume.
As in me love of sonnetry repeats,
I find a spot three hundred steps away,
Where, from this catalyst, art unsecretes.
For, now, out in the bright spark of the day,
Between these tombs of Binnie, Baird & Burck,
I roam East Bank, with serendips at play,
Knowing this is a place where I could work,
For silent spaces are the makar’s kirk.
*****
SCOTTISH POETRY LIBRARY
As pleasure makes us read & reading makes us know
& knowing makes us sing, & singing makes us grow
‘Tis best to set in store the reliquary of song
A merry house of books which all can march among
To cherish & sustain a native heritage
As Homer heard the tales of Menalean rage
Down here on Crichton’s Close a nation’s soul is kept
The surge MacDiarmid surf’d, the dirges Dunbar wept
Thro’ Scotland’s love of art & Gulbenkian gift
An avalanche of books available to sift
Come pile a table high, as shelf-by-shelf we comb
To find that special verse, or take those verses home
If ever passing by, if under poesy’s spell,
Come pause & swoon & sigh where kindred spirits dwell!
*****
RABBIE BURNS
There is a certain knack to becoming an immortal;
As Orpheus’ heartbeat passes thro’ Pluto’s portal
& Burns arriv’d at Baxter‘s Close, by Lady Stair’s fine house,
Singing of reeking haggises & a wee tim’rous mouse,
When, even on that first mad day, he copp’d a‘gardy-loo,’
Went shit-caked, wand’ring city streets, without a bloody clue,
He knew if he could sing his songs the world was sure to hear,
So, as oor sweet Sordello fell on Johnnie Dowie’sbeer,
With enough space for a fiddle, him just like theArgo’s cox,
He beats enchaunting rhythm thro’ his native tides &rocks,
Eftsoons, at Mrs Carfrae’s door, his destiny wouldstand,
“Your little book of poetry the gossip of the land!”
That night the muse came calling as oor bardie’s pen address’d
Verses to fluff his new edition, both Edina-bless’d.
*****
EDINBURGH ZOO
When Noah’s Ark left two-by-two,
They’d hurry back in if they’d knew
They’d one day end up in a zoo
For all the fucking world to view;
The Wolverine, the Kangaroo,
The Lesser Spiral-Horn’d Kudu,
The Chimpanzees in pirate crew,
The Turacoo of violet hue,
The coarse-quill’d, stiff-claw’d, casque’d Emu,
Flies flocking to the Rhino poo,
The Pygmy Hippo, & what’s new
The Ocellated Turkey too!
I climb the walls, midst human herds,
An Alcatraz of Beasts & Birds!
*****
CRAMMOND
As I burst out of Costorphine Wood in times of rhymes uprising
A little disorientated from that madd’ning mazy hill
Below me, summer farmland, grand in greens & gold unfolding
Down to the Crammond foreshore with her island leaning leftwise
I wander’d with the cyclists, there, the sea-gulls & the dogwalkers
Lit by a misty sun, visible thro a mole’s opacous membrane
& felt a certain freedom beneath the soft calm of heaven
From the stench & detritus of dirty empires in the waters
Mankind is older than the dust of lost forgotten cities
& the monkeys & the dogs & the lizards we all once were
There is a wondrous common-ness to which all creation must answer
A pond of ancient memories, you can hear them in the ditties
Sung by blind bards, & in the Spring when deep down we remember
Being those plants gasping for life across thirsty, frozen tundra
Like a baby turning towards the milky breast of his mother!
*****
STOCKBRIDGE
When standing in Stockbridge the city staccato
Seems quietly distant, as streets of high quality
Are blest with a presence of sensible shoes,
Of ladies of leisure alluring luxurious,
& jolly old gentlemen, & joggers in jewels;
O! Wealth Karlsefinian! O! Pride Carthaginian!
That vision of Raeburn, his mission to build homes
Exclusive, expensive, elusive advantages,
Two gardens to tend to, a postcode of gold,
But built before parking & permits & penpushers,
The mad, modern nightmare the New Town now knows!
To buy such a mansion, price upwards two million
Or more for the glory of lordlier life,
All named after Raeburn’s amazing young wife!
*****
CALTON HILL
I am the Silver Rose,
& with these streets shall fuse,
To etch my gift in rhyme;
The scene provokes the Muse
To join me, for a time!
“THOU ART THE SILVER ROSE
LET US MEET IN THIS CITY
FLESH, BRICK, SKY & OCEAN,
HARMONIOUS, ETERNALLY, NOW!”
Auld Reekie flames my mind,
This heart-pulse of the realm,
In dragon’s furnace born!
With faeries at the helm
By Eldritch dream design’d!
*****
OVER LOTHIAN
We forage up volcanic Berwick Law,
Oer the kingdom of the Votadini,
From gorse-gold mount Lothian’s jewel shore
Curves round the Firth of Forth to Queensferry.
‘Neath rocks of prehistoric pimplerie,
Dunbar, East Linton, Haddington abide,
Fields skiff the sea, while to the other side
Roll lonely Lammermuirs where thought soars free.
& further still, beside the Fifer sea,
The silver streak of Portobello sands,
Leads on to Leith, then inland, shadowy,
Peeps Arthur’s Seat, winking at the Pentlands;
This is the length of Roman Lothian,
A second home my roaming soul hath won.
*****
COUNTRY LIVING
My cities, I leave thee, gritty & grime,
This budding muse prepares the spirit’s ark,
Where bird-migration marks the pass of time
What was lifestyle now grey & stranger-stark.
Like Guernica or Oranges-sur-Seine,
Once vivid colours growing daily dark.
Occasionally owend my thoughts to when
Wordsworth had found a stool to ease his mind
From crowded sensibilities of men
I, too, hope happy harbourage to find
Beside a world of green, where piny glade
By Vallambrosan cardinal design’d
For as Iona’s church from wattles made
The forum for a forest made fair trade.
*****
CARFRAE
When the broad haars uprise t’ward the breadth of the skies,
Looking down from the crown Lammermuirs,
Unseal’d from the mist, like the steel of a fist,
Little Carfrae, like love, reappears!
With the air floating still let your stare catch a hill
& the soft heather thatch of the moors,
Let the clarion wild stroke your soul like a child
As its calling us all out of doors.
Wherever you are, whether near, whether far,
Come & while with a poet today,
Take a drive, make a hike, climb a mile on your bike,
To the magical isle of Carfrae.
All alone, set apart, in the glorious heart
Of East Lothian’s wheat Beaujolais.
*****
A NEW HOME
This land so very different from the map,
Whose shades of green & grey fail to divulge
The beauty of this place I now call home;
“I now call home…” these words unreal to hear,
How many times I sing them to my mind,
If this is so, I must now be prepar’d
For all eventualities life throws,
But balanc’d in my years let fear subside,
My body following its shining soul,
For love has led me safely here thus far,
Where now I feel a Caledonian,
Sent here by love, by love deposited,
Sensing a while of work, so to remain,
As in this place, & time, three things converge –
An art, an artist & his ain heart’s surge.
*****
PRESSMENNAN
Feel the feeling on the edge of summer,
Hours before your first foggybummer,
April, perhaps, or March on a good year,
Out on the tracks with the shy, pregnant deer,
Wearing the hat that you’ve worn all Winter,
Skimming thro’ Plath or the plays of Pinter,
Warming each pace in your courdoroy clothes,
As petals do abud before the rose.
As all at once we lessen from our haste,
& cardigans are tied about the waste,
We feel a spirit stroke the naked arm
A zephyr-waft, so soft, so cool, so calm,
So, this is Serendip’s pastoral muse,
Far from life’s little fish-hooks, & it’s news.
*****
HEATHER LODGE
There was a time I felt compell’d to race
Round London at a hundred miles an hour,
Hopping twixt train & bus; but now my pace
To footstep slows,
For living far away
I notice, now, the needlessness of car
Walking six miles, both to & from Dunbar.
With rent I’ll pay upon my country pile,
I could afford, there, just about one room!
Blessing my zephyr with a certain smile,
Erewhile she blows
Above, the clouds grow gloom…
As, yesterday, I London would adore
Today I wake to walk the Lothian shore.
*****
SUMMER VISTA
Upon the steep slopes of Spott Dod
I sat, observing as a God
Surveys Creation all below,
Thro’ fields reflecting sommerglow
The London train creeps past a car,
The wavy mane beside Dunbar
Grew angel blue, no northern sea
In glassy, grey conformity,
But more an Adriatic Bay,
Ecstatic with this cloudless day
& I, above it, with the sheep,
Some rustic Croat half asleep,
Dreaming where men have rarely trod
Upon the steep slopes of Spott Dod.
Mumble Words 