Peter Strugnell (Portsmouth, England)

Oh the cold air of the Kishorn burial ground,
and the ghost's there everywhere you turn,
the cold and the damp seems to follow you down,
to the brackish waters of the Russel Burn.

The Burn, the blood, and the porcelain shard,
an aching mitt and another lesson to learn,
I numb the hand and the ghost of the churchyard,
in the brackish waters of the Russel Burn.

There's a heart as cold as the Wester Ross,
there are ties that bind like a highland fern,
there's a sullied figurine nailed to a cross,
and the brackish waters of the Russel Burn.

The ghosts leave traces of residual pain,
as the ashes scatter from a broken urn,
tainted and tarnished and never the same,
oh the brackish waters of the Russel Burn.