2009
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sad old things
dust gathering
and how we’re home
like words we forget still were
jugs upstairs
all their underparts
words ringing round with toil of us
mad hair and how to comb?
cupboard scuttle too dark to explore
things left and things forgotten
rubble under
rich with lost wishes
old harvest to scythe
all kinds of rust
moonlight lost
a topple of fences
day unshaven
even till last joy
all become
even again
and we’re stone
2008
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in a stone circle
at Machrie Moor on the Isle of Arran
heaving grief
tired as fear
a hard man
terrible
here’s respect!
we place it here
the crouch of bone
elk and auroch, boar and fox
these all whom he brought down
man of stone
strong armed
here’s his face on yours
here’s hate and tender too
by a sheep ridden ruin
by the dung rusted byre
a wall of were
the clover overgrows
by power of death alone
we work
and the big man is planted
to the underlife
all this stone we’d heave
we’d haul
and more
another mile we’d haul
to keep the fucker down
2007
6.181
30.vi.25
Lochranza
tidal thoughts
after the Wee Hurry of Troon
a seaweed field
fast burn
ruin half thrown
a wash of yacht beaching
old stones and a whiff of the sea
rags of cloud, lit
name like a pirate romance
paint peeling delightfully
there is a charm of rot
and miles remain
quarters thereof
even yards, feet
one of those places time won’t settle
the ten o’clock dog walking road
cars abandon
as the bird of a breeze and morning
so here to tell the sea
it’s where the heather takes up with
the hill
one may smile
midge net in pocket still
2006
6.180
29.vi.25
the artists refuse to
leave the residency
they dig in deep
have the habit of the place
the artists have fortified themselves
with spirits
(elves and faeries, trolls, all sorts)
they assert the every artist’s right
it’s as if they each were born to it
the making
and wherever they go
there’s imagination
they’re doing destiny too
pass the baton
they inspire!
they’re in the conversation
they are entitled as anything!
thing that afflicted before is now
less
the residency is a kind of cure
everyone thinks they’re on holidays
but there’s all this work no one
understands
least of all them
they go on!
the artists forget where they’re from
who they are
they’re in the swing
they need no why
they have decided to haunt the place
with their signs
with inkling this that, quandary
they have the hang of the walls
the residency turns out to be just
what was needed
they needed a break
it’s not broken, why go?
the artists are on the mend
you won’t hear the last
they have replaced the fear of
departure
with the joy of staying
they even have a few words of the
language
put them to strange uses
the artists are the sunshine
have come the long way
to do what they do
you’ll never see the back of them
the artists have arrived
2005
6.179
28.vi.25
at sea
ekphrastic for Jóhanna Sveinsdóttir’s 1946 ‘From the Westman Islands’
the world has just these few shapes,
colours
this many brush strokes of the mind
to fight, to love, to tangle here
that’s cloud there
here’s a heaving sea
dark moss climb
the eye behind
there isn’t a boat
but I’m in the picture
there’s nothing human but to see
there’s no time here at all
living in a volcano
song
came up
here to the top of the world
just to get
a better view
met Thor and
saw where the bolt was hurled
now nobody
seems to care
that
we’re
living in a volcano
hiding under the ice
nobody knows when it’s going to blow
but we’re here to take advice
you’d think
that up here on the top-
you could
get a breath of fresh air
but there’s
fire and brimstone all over the shop
it drives a
Viking spare
to be
living in a volcano
hiding under the ice
nobody knows when it’s going to blow
but we’re here to take advice
there’s
another crisis coming
emperors
are feeding on our fear
you spot
the dollars as they’re floating off
you’d think
it would be safe up here
but we’re
living in a volcano
hiding under the ice
nobody knows when it’s going to blow
but we’re here to take advice
all this
marauding and hoarding
civilization
at last
we’re
boarding up all the hopes and dreams
the ice is
melting fast
nobody
knows how we got here
but I’m
sure it wasn’t nice
living in a volcano
hiding under the ice
made of burnt stone
breath to grey bright
blur trees to distance
not a hair out
having waited in a cloud so far
under the weight of day
a stillness fitting the frame
a sheep sun
fleecing
sky is high
cows as far
as milk
there are
lines
billowing
gone
a little
sea the snow meets
friskybit
horsies
wispy dour
soft spoken
for mist
this is the
thousand year penance of flesh
that’s cloud there
here’s a heaving sea
dark moss climb
the eye behind
six thousand and seventy three years
from the world’s beginning
smoky bay
thwart fixed to gunwale
and where the high seat washed ashore
step a little inland, brackish
squat turf mossed for a hat
bones in the turf wall warding off
indoors choking, soaked and frozen
even the sea looks like a ship
let's play foxes and lambs
later will be the chimney village
colourful plague of deathflies
forebodes
there will be a butter house
gossip streets
weight of words to choke down
concupiscapes
flows of blow now set
flower ready for the rain
weather’s telling itself over
they’re waking up to this again
gods build their ruins here
a tree grows green towards
and down as fast as up
come perch here, nest, sing
grub through the dream
a cast of dark
a sprig of light
it's as when I was with the mountain
falls away to nothing
they tend their own alphabet here
and heroes are a sort of soil
the spirit wisp of lyric flag
a boat in my pocket
a house in my head
cloud for a wheel to roll on
they're growing the flags in China for here
it's midsummer no night
the sea beside me in this bed
sea is a salt wishing waking
the logical conclusion of paper is fire
a sword is for the dead to travel
go into the mountain just here, just now
that's where time is gone
the flower in flower
the bee in flight
the bright, as if to colour called
how much of us is the sea
the sea is a mountain too
the moss
like a thought lain
for a hat
for a sky
as heaven grey
dusk gentle
to travel is to imagine a world
otherwise you're where you are
fingers nimble to
must believe
the
hillscramble underhoof
leaf strew
look up
twig just
and times you’re wild
crash through
sun
fleece
birch
grass
bird and sky
we have only imagined ourselves
the spirit wisp of lyric flag
the effigy obverse
beech, birch, spruce, alder, sassafras
bird was the first breath here –
a speculative venture
what can be brought in a beak?
Yggdrasil
at one time a tree was the world
who knew?
we’re still guessing
before the ice and since
a nunatak of the younger Dryas
a thousand years treeless
(thank far ancestors for that)
what do
they believe of us?
the glimmer folk
cloud caps
them
they’re yay
high
everywhere’s
alive
and here’s
the proof
they hide
things – one sock, a spoon
the map for
the day
they’ll
steal a lid
to keep you
from remembering
don’t call them by their real names
don’t throw
stones, you never know
sometimes
best not to speak presence
to each be
as we are
all sacred,
everywhere so
they show
from stones of where
nor with
our words
but light,
but bells, but in the running
in every
tree, this waking – spring
cloud and
blanket over
they are a
mirror to us
moss their
forest, cleft shy crag
breeze
free, sometimes severe
explain the
vengeance of a living land
it’s just
the same as for us to remember
today’s the
day we’re not here
tap on a
cloud for memory
come in
come in, you’re welcome
hung for a
lonely hope of washing
travellers
all, breeze and go
each unlike
another
these are the clouds at the top of
the world
horizon biding,
hill high
a
parliament of them
house was a ship
a sea tether
wreck of shore
making up a world again
from just these stories
just from this sky
a whim of light
hollow and hilly
the fire before we ever were
a sunfirst winter sliver
it’s
stuffing a fish
with a sea
with a ship
with the
dream of a sailor to drown
elven
an abduction
no choice but to imagine us
their gravity’s of another world
lithe, limber
they, as well, have their pet lambs
their markets
come out of the mountain
they are joined at the dance
if show themselves
they take a care
are made of music
their script like a song
and heavenward with that
hidden for a good cause
they are suspicious too
grey of touch
they milk the mares
and ride around a battle
rust to a sea
pack bags, set out
the elfshot lays low cattle
by elfsneak, object gone
dark ones and light ones
they can make new hair
breeze woven
pencil folk
revengeful
knock on a rock
come in if you dare
sometimes to know the sky is to fly
we, too, are of thin air
someone
once
and the ice
and the fire
a sea
beside, a mist in
just
landing, come crevice safe
and a slant
beam shows
all the
bright is just between
rain’s the
thing that lasts
a flower bent to its thousand years
