1. An Inside Job (1)
‘And only click the switch, when you hear sound'
The audiologist said.
I closed my eyes to concentrate
And through the open doors of hearing
A single note sang out
And like a pebble cast into a pool
Ripples of sound reverberated softly
She stopped the test, abruptly.
‘So many clicks…but I fed in so few! '
‘But they were real, I heard them, ' I exclaimed.
‘Who knows what happens in another's head? ' she said;
‘I've had some say they'd bagpipe music there
And choirs of angels…that's another corker
And even castanets like in Majorca.'
She was looking at me as if I was a nutter
In vain, I protested that
The quiet echo was real inside my brain
The aural version of an oral stutter
In truth, it's nice that science draws a blank
Not knowing what's inside each dark think tank
And so my dreams are safe, no MRI
Can scan and decode mystery on the sly
2.Between the Lines
The poetry book was squashed
Between a low-carb diet manual
And a detailed map of inner city Edinburgh
It was a prestigious poetry book
It had been launched some years before
To the clink of wine glasses
And the whiff of garlic bread
To rapturous effusions from ‘Enchanted, Inverkeithing'
True, it had not travelled widely
Was rarely handled. But it had aspirations
The low carb diet manual
Boasted a print run of thousands
It had caused more fat to be melted
Than all of the crematoria of Glasgow
It professed to be an asset to the nation
‘What, ' (it asked the poetry book)
‘Have you ever done to combat diabetes,
Or heal the hammered livers of the Scots? '
‘Mens sana in corpore sano' countered the poetry book
To which the detailed map of inner city Edinburgh exclaimed,
‘Ah, but can you direct the feet of the globe
To the pub at the World's End? '
3.The Lost Brother: Ian Alexander Middleton
(11) 3287-5730 Rua Eng Monlevade,166 Rev.8 A(01308-07) Sao Paulo, Brazil
For thirty years and more he was a deletion,
From family matters, the non-appearance
At funerals, weddings, deaths
He fled our salt-grit Scottish town
Choosing Brazil, the lure of the get-rich-quick,
The modern conquistador's paradise
His colleagues lived in compounds,
Shot and killed intruders from the favelas
Where cocaine traffickers swam the slums
Like finned pirhanas honing in on loot
Amigos amigos, negócios à parte.
Friends are friends, business is business,
His favourite saying, his modus operandi
Strolling through the internet today
I typed in his address, my long dead sibling
His name flashed up, like Lazarus up-rising
4.At the Great Wall of China (1)
On the twin-edged spine of the hunch-backed Chinese Wall
I heard not silence but chatter, not birds, but speech
The clicking of multiple cameras, freezing faces
To feed the gnawing hunger to be remembered
The need to give impermanence Angel's wings
At the Great Wall of China (2)
Seen from the stars, the Great Wall's bones
Ridged in ramparts, stone on stone
Moon-shot elf-bolt, flying, falls
Strike its sides with lightning scrawls
Mortar dark with human blood
Has outlived the drought, the flood
Mason, master, warrior-band
Power and person turned to sand
5. Edinburgh
The stumps of a bridge sat gap-toothed in the Forth
Much ado about nothing, going nowhere
The day was ajar with happenings glimpsed on the sly
The capital was a skating rink of traffic
In the hierarchy of transport, Tram was king
An insomniac drunk was using the bridge as his hearth
As a bridal party sallied out from a kirk
The women in hats like lampshades, fashion‘s scaffolding
Their menfolk, bald or pigtailed, moneyed people
Tourists shunted along on throbbing feet
A roadie hoisted his tattooed, sweaty arm
Like a builder's crane with a beer tin fixed to the end
Somebody's spittle fizzed on the heart of Midlothian
A Japanese student in cappuccino stilettos
Picked her way down cobbles as wet as sushi
Sir Walter Scott on his pigeonholed airy plinth
Smiled down on lovers locked in a lip-stuck kiss
‘Dae ye ken, hen, ' said a Glasgow guy to his girl
‘In Edinburgh, men cock their crannies tae masturbate.'
6. Desmond's Giro
Veins bulge in Desmond's giro
His cash-flow's silted up
No funds to fuel his life style
No dosh to live it up
Veins bulge in Desmond's giro
It needs a little op
To free him from dependency
Give benefits the chop
7.Marionettes
Skeleton bones clack like chopsticks
A Gothic puppet with reptilian eyes
Peels smiles from children's faces
In a flash, the compass of emotion
Jitters from joy to fear
Pierrot the clown forlornly blows a balloon
These marionettes are large as human dwarfs
Each string is barbed with a sting
A direct line to Nightmare's memory pouch
8.Lapidus
Lean upon writing as a crutch
A therapeutic coping aid
Pain is released through written words
In lines where ghosts of hurts are laid
Don't be a victim- challenge Fate
Use writing when you feel dismayed
Such tiny literary seeds have mighty sheltering orchards made
9. Blackpool (1)
50% of those in Blackpool smoke
17% of folk are unemployed
There's poverty, drugs and crime on its estates
Dole tourists enjoying their benefits, seaside
The bucket and spade attraction has collapsed
But still its promenade parades the expected
The fortune-tellers, public houses, trams,
The donkeys, fish-and-chip shops all infected
With the listless hopelessness that Autumn brings
October in Blackpool's a junkie who's relapsed
They've got a Hopper bus that trawls around
The Zoo, the Stanley Park, the Model Village,
Sandcastle park, the Tower the Pleasure Beach
In the mizzling rain there's little joy to pillage
Red rose of Lancaster's on every cheek
Bitten by sea-fret, wind slap, autumn chill
Clog dancers thump a back stage cheerlessly
Faggots congeal on plates like greasy swill
Above this soars the tower,5 million bricks
Two thousand and five hundred tons of steel
A quite heroic structure, it's survived
A million holidays, gulls constant squeal
10.Blackpool (2)
Two pensioners arm in arm
Stroll creakily along the Blackpool pier
Three inky crows avoid them
Too slim pickings
The Season's passed for paddling
The only slap and tickle is the water
Kissing the legs of the pier
11.The Muckers
The Muckers is the name of a football gang linked to Blackpool FC
Trashing buses, scratching vans
Fighting fans and football bans
Clashing with the police in pubs
Violence, terror, brawling thugs
Smashing buses, firebomb lob
Rammy Arms Crew, Benny's mob
Bottles, glassings, mayhem, swearing
Bisons' riot café, wearing
Scarves and badges, shouting, slashing
Burnings, stabbings, gougings, crashing
Windows shake a peaceful place
Football shows its ugly face
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem