Poems

from What the river told me

in a pub in Moniave
I think I’ve found my people 
enveloped in a clutch of folk musicians 
singing at the top of my voice

I see a thin child enter 
with a wolfhound on a lead 
but when she turns and looks up
I she is a little person 
of wrinkled face and long straw hair 
I think I’ve found my people 
although I don’t understand a word
it doesn’t matter

the single malts are finished 
before the stage of gutter-rolling
that night I couldn’t sleep 

the next day I’m taken to Castle Douglas by car 
the scenic route of winding roads at breakneck speed

he gave me a special Scottish sweet
when he said goodbye 
I appreciate it later 
caramel melting on my tongue 
on the bus to Newton Stewart

at Moniave I thought I’d found my people 
but it was only the whisky 
I’ll probably never go to Moniave again 

from sing out when you want me

there were these poems
like bats
they come at night

flap vain above my whore-bright hair
penless I fight sleep
the shapes

reach fruitless just that
inch too short
and out of ink

fourth stanza
gone you
fleeting bastards get the pen before you sleep

I think

from Water Music

In the end, of course, he got married
to himself. A civil ceremony, nothing too glib, a friend
or two, a reporter from The Mirror, the odd flame
from the past, a waiter with icy water:
his watery parents, a little perplexed, looking around,
confused because no engagement had been announced.

The celebrant was vague, her words left an eerie
echo, she quickly left. Nobody spoke. At last, he escorted
himself into the Bridal Suite: nervous, a little beery,
he sat there blushing on the edge of a single bed.