Over Forty Shades

Risks

2009-06-18T07:05:00.000Z

She, your daughter or perhaps your niece,
has worked with refugees,
sewn on limbs blown off by mines,
read homelessness in women’s eyes –
the pain of the dispossessed.

You, an insurance man, say
‘they should better have weighed
the risks, avoided the temptation
of escape, stayed at home
for goodness sake!’

Safe and bored in suburban freedom,
you cannot imagine danger
surrounding your home
with paralysing fear
a time-bomb slowly ticking.

previously published on Catapult to Mars

Shells

2009-06-16T16:46:00.000Z

(Morecambe Bay, February 2004)

Grey skies, cold and bitter wind
a share of a damp mattress
in an unheated room.

You follow orders from the brother
to the man who let your cousin die
in a truck approaching Dover.

Your parents wait back home
with nothing but pain and a photo of you
smiling through the English rain.

Shells held to your ear
murmured promises, but they are empty
here in devil’s beach.

Treacherous sands shift
impossible to know where is safe
where will suck away your life.

Speaking freely for Read Write Poem

reposted for Refugee Week

Home

2009-06-15T07:18:00.002Z

Home is a place you won’t see again
Home’s what you lost when you boarded the boat
Home is the songs you sing to keep sane
Home is the seeds in the hem of your coat

Home is the warm soft bread that you bake
Home is the old-country clothes that you make
Home is the musical language you speak
Home is the garden where you plant the seeds

Home is the tree that grows from your seeds
Home is the shelter and shade of the tree
Home is the love in your children’s eyes
Home is the future here to which they aspire.

Home for Refugee Week
(cross-posted on Crafty Green Poet)

What does Home mean to You?

2009-06-05T07:45:00.003Z

From film festivals to football tournaments, comedy nights to carnivals, exhibitions, workshops, parties and much, much more, Refugee Week Scotland (15-21 June 2009) is an exciting programme of events happening across the country to celebrate diversity and raise awareness of refugee issues.

This year the theme of Refugee Week is HOME. For many refugees and asylum seekers, a new home in Scotland means safety from persecution and a life without fear. But what does home mean to you?

Home for me is Edinburgh, Crafty Green Boyfriend, goth clubs, the Filmhouse bar and of course the natural environment. You can read more about that last over on Crafty Green Poet, which is my natural blogging home.

I'll be posting poetry on the theme of Home during Refugee Week.

Meanwhile what does home mean to you? If you're in Scotland and want to include your thoughts on home in your blog, please include the first two paragraphs and link to Refugee Week Scotland 09 in your post.

Scots in Malaŵi

2009-05-09T09:25:00.000Z

I recognised my student Rose
by the Bank of Scotland t-shirt she chose
to wear to class before her uniform arrived.

I found my way around the map
by following traces of a certain chap
called Livingstone as we have presumed.

From Mzuzu to Malindi
the place is full of Scots of inde-
pendent spirit and enquiring mind.

Even Banda was a Scot
by formation as near as not.

But the shops sell Coca Cola and never Irn Bru.

previously published in my pamphlet Bougainvillea Dancing

for more about the connections between Scotland and Malawi, visit the Scotland Malawi Partnership website.

Hyperlinking my poetry for Read Write Poem. The best idea is to read the poem all the way through and then follow the links to find out more. I'm not sure how much creative, rather than informative value there is in adding hyperlinks to poetry, but i think its worth looking into. What do you think?

2009-04-19T13:53:00.002Z

St Cuthbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh

More photos from the same walk on Crafty Green Poet here.

Not in Our Name

2009-04-12T09:17:00.001Z

There were mutterings that each day grew louder,
signs and portents that we refused to believe.
Local militia were organizing and drilling
getting ready to answer the call should it come.
Not that people thought that it would come.
They believed, as they hoped,
that something would be done to prevent war…….
As for those others who prophesied and prayed for it,
who wanted the vials of God's wrath uncorked,
they got what they wanted.
Their prayers were answered;
the land was drenched in blood.
But for the most of us
we did not.

Found poem from:
A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865: Being a Record of the Actual Experiences of the Wife of a Confederate Officer: Ed. by Myrta Lockett Avary

For Read Write Poem

Meditations on a Letter

2009-04-05T12:06:00.002Z

For Wolfgang

I remember the letter you wrote to me,
After so many years of silence,
Four times A4 in fancy font
With drawings and photographs.
Your humour shone from every page,
Your love for your friends and their children.
I read each word and dwelt on it,
Remembering four summers ago.

I remembered the trip you took me on
Through the Antrim countryside –
Frm Ballycastle to Dunluce Castle
And the Carrick-rede rope bridge.
The motorbike sped along country lanes
As we roared our way down the beautiful coast.
We used any excuse to stop the bike
There were so many things to explore.

I remember now, hearing the news
That you had killed yourself,
Silence set in, a sense of shock
And a terrible feeling of loss.
You were always so alive,
More alive than anyone.
I find myself ask myself
What stops the rest of us?

Deliberately misunderstanding Meditation on a Letter for Totally Optional Prompts - I wrote this ages ago and was convinced I had already blogged it, but apparently not! A famous poet once said nice things about this poem, though its not one I personally like too much.

Skin Deep - an update

2009-03-20T07:50:00.004Z

I got my contributor's copy of Skin Deep yesterday and it's beautiful! I mean even if you never read the poems in this book, its a work of art to treasure. Even better, the poems are excellent too!

You can buy a copy here!

Many thanks to Claire, for producing such a gorgeous book and for including one of my poems in it!

2009-03-16T13:33:00.001Z

gallery quiet -
shattered by loud opinions
of old ladies.

2009-03-08T09:37:00.002Z

"new diet" -
cake crumbs litter
her keyboard

Food for Read Write Poem

There's another for this topic on Crafty Green Poet here.

My Life as a Mafia Widow

2009-02-19T06:02:00.000Z

It's something about the Italian shape of your nose
something that lurks in the shadows in oddly compelling Mafia films
the unexpected gia visto of Sciasca's sentences
that I absorb untaught in the original

old nightmares of being chased down cobbled streets to my death
start to make some kind of sense

and my face on my passport photo
looks like some Sicilian widow
as I was when Cosa Nostra stole you away
in our last life

and still in this one
you never speak to me
while your girl
practices mourning,

Mafia style

gia visto - deja vu

Cosa Nostra - Mafia

Re-imagining my life for Read Write Poem

Skin Deep - poetry about tattoos

2009-02-18T07:50:00.002Z

Skin Deep, the anthology of poetry about tattoos, edited by Claire Askew, is now available to pre-order here. It will be available in tattoo shops and other outlets in Edinburgh from the beginning of March. £4 only!

Yes, I do feature in it.....

2009-02-10T20:17:00.001Z

picking at the scabs
of unwanted memory -
insistent questions

Sleep Disturbed

2009-01-30T07:26:00.001Z

Not teething
as mother thinks, but
dreams of earlier lives,
lessons from the past.

You try to understand
but it all slips like sand
through your chubby fingers.

You talk and play in nursery,
wonder what it means,
what happened to all that stuff you knew?

an earlier version of this poem was published in Quantum Leap magazine

Sleepless for Weekend Wordsmith

Sleepless also over at Crafty Green Poet

New Poems, Chiefly in the Scots

2009-01-20T21:39:00.003Z

This evening I was at the Scottish Poetry Library for the launch of this anthology of commissioned poetry in Scots along with its companion selection of the poetry of Robert Burns Best Laid Schemes. There were readings of Burns' work, including a long poem of his about America, nicely timed for today. There were also readings from some of the poets featured in New Poems, the highlight of which for me was David Kinloch reading from his poem about Eugene Montale (the great Italian poet) addressing a cuttlefish in Scots. Kinloch has a wonderfully observant humour running through his poetry and this was a very entertaining poem.

Best Laid Schemes, edited by Robert Crawford and Christopher MacLachlan
New Poems, Chiefly in Scots, edited by Robert Crawford
both published by Polygon.

Koolaids by Rabih Alemeddine

2009-01-18T13:34:00.003Z

This is a wonderfully inventive novel, made up of snippets of letters, press articles, diaries and narrative from various characters, who may or may not be related. Two main themes run through the novel, AIDS and war in Lebanon. Both themes are treated with sensitivity, insight, thoughtfulness and humour. The result is a novel that is gripping, moving and hilarious.

A one minute review for The One Minute Writer

Dialect

2009-01-09T07:02:00.001Z

I've read some interesting books about language recently, you can read briefly about the environmental aspects of these books over on Crafty Green Poet here. Reading these books and started me thinking about dialect and the languages of the UK. Whether Scots is a language or a dialect is an argument that has been discussed for many a year and no doubt the discussion will continue for a long time yet, though I suspect that if Scotland ever achieves independence, then on that day, Scots will become emphatically and without question a language - just look at Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, three mutually comprehensible languages that I guess would be defined as dialects if they were spoken in different parts of one political state.

I've lived in Scotland for many years now and have a lot of Scots words in my vocabulary (which I use in my poetry too) but i would never consider myself to speak Scots. It's the accent, people from the south of England may mistake my Scottish intonation for a Scots accent but no-one around hear would ever allow that my accent is anything other than English. And ye cannae speak Scots wi' an English accent. Incidentally I thought it was strange that my Scots dictionary that i got for my birthday, doesn't have the word dippit in it. (Dippit is a fine Scots word meaning silly or stupid).

If you feel like writing poetry in dialect or that includes some dialect words, why not hop over to Read Write Poem and take part in my latest prompt over there.

My Ancestors Take the Night Train across Europe

2008-12-24T13:47:00.000Z

Your sister looks Italian though
my mother says randomly
(though she's always looked very English to me)
or Spanish perhaps,
where does the name Gratrix
come from anyway?

It's an ancient British name I explain
oh she continues well what about Train
that must be Scandinavian?

My paternal Grandmother's maiden name was Gratrix
My mother's maiden name was Train, another ancient British name

My mother's paternal grandfather was a station master and his surname was Train. His son married a Miss Driver. Thankfully they didn't go for a double-barrelled name.

Going Ancestral for Read Write Poem

and yes, that was a real conversation with my mother.

Winter Streets

2008-12-17T06:27:00.000Z

it has always been
something on the cold
strikes the heart

I only realise now
as I stumble, numbed

winter night stage set streets
siren blue flash police cars pass

it's a lonely road

Book Giveaway

2008-12-06T11:47:00.002Z

I'm giving away some books over on Crafty Green Poet - to find out what I'm giving away and to join in , please go here.

Advent

2008-12-02T06:19:00.000Z

Because we no longer believe
we spend months preparing
for a festival
whose true meaning scares us
so we bury it under greed
and gluttony to escape
the cold slanting sadness
that is our fate.

2008-11-24T14:59:00.001Z

night train -
middle aged commuter plays
air guitar

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

2008-11-17T08:11:00.003Z

Anyone who is interested in languages should read this book! It's accessible, informative, intellectually stimulating, entertaining and sometimes infuriating. Pinker puts forward the idea that language is instinctive and looks at the evolution of language, how grammar works and the genetics of language. Academic linguistics is kept to a minimum, instead examples are given of how language works in real life situations. Pinker explored questions such as can chimpanzees really be taught sign language? and is the English language deteriorating?

You may not agree with everything he says, but you'll certainly have plenty to think about....

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

Satsuma Nightmare

2008-11-07T09:02:00.004Z

oil glazed lasers throb
surreal landscapes, spacescapes video
bass pounds.......drums pound
vibrate through floor.......through legs

pure noise smash
strobe lights crash
slow motion collapse

sensory overload drowning
in red music
of burning glass

(Tangerine Dream in Concert, Sunday 2 November)

Red Music of Burning Glass for Poefusion