#2024 - Jamie Macpherson

 

2024

6.198

16.vii.25

Jamie Macpherson

hanged for an Egyptian and traveler, 1700

 

Fareweel, ye dungeons dark and strang, fareweel, fareweel tae ye

                                         – traditional

 

bagged like a cat with a blanket thrown

so unsworded from

 

robbin’ the lairds and loving the crofters

bastard outlaw from birth

 

his enemy the sleekit Laird Braco

toff with a grudge

who set the town clock on

when the messenger with the pardon come

 

at merkat cross

here’s more alive than any there

condemned for the crime of having been born

 

a tune

a rant at the foot of the gallows

 

and how many times?

how many will deny me now

come to see, to hear

 

condemned to hang for the crime of just being

 

and no one for my fiddle? no one?

I’ll smash it to splinters then