The Water Of Leith Of Consciousness Poem by Garry Stanton

The cave is moist,
fecund, and,
outside the Volunteer Arms,
the results play.

Smears of brown, canine,
rest with beer-
stains on ‘society’,
and are washed
to the Firth by
tedious torrents,
as bus-catching catatonics,
amid gamp-phalanxes,
wait
for buses.

Little eye-contact, but
oh no (there’s always one)
that smelly wee swine is
gawping at me.
Not at me, though, above me.
I have a halo.

Look away, wee man, nae Saint me!

We span Junction Bridge
and as I pretend to crossword,
a cadaver corrodes
covertly
beneath, among the Coke cans and the condoms,
in the cool mercury roils
of this hotbed,
ignored

by the swans-inscrutable,
who have always had the
good grace
to ignore
such
distasteful
minutiae.





Garry Stanton
Copyright 2008