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Merlin's Meditation
for R I sit upon the oldest stone and stare through webs of rain at one more village burrowed deep into a valley’s grain. I count the lines upon my feet to tell me where I am and measure time through lavender and space through lemon balm. I hear my daughter bringing wood to warm our souls by flame she was the mother of my fire when ice became my name. I see the stars predict the past as evening shadows night the wand of Merlin is a sword that wounds the dark with light. Shell Bay 1967 Your eyes were as wide as overblown flowers, my little brother, as I jumped from the high path through sun-billowed, summer-pregnant air, in a leap that held time in its trance, into knee-deep kisses of sand. In your striped shirt and giant spectacles you watched me take flight for both of us, you on the beach with bucket and spade, me on the edge without any wings. What happened to us, that forty years on, you no longer sit and marvel at our play, and I no longer leave my sandals far behind? mozart’s mother think about me when you claim my son for your own he was the baby I bled into life and congealed into genius he was the child I composed and scored into my flesh he was the man I loved in dissonance and harmonic mode think about me when you claim my son for your own you gang of wolves you deus I am you art of moses I was his mother and he was my son a never broken chord my angel antidote to and from the ruins of memory The Sea Coal fir Jock an Eck Oors up ti ma waist in watter, cauld creeshy watter the colour o deid faces; an thae ileskins, nivir did keep oot the arthritis. Ye made a shuvel oot o a wuiden pole an steel frame, pittin wire nettin owre the frame. Whiles ye caaed yer pan in shuvelin the coal up; whiles the sea shuveled it up fir ye. A still mynd the maumy dirl o the coal washin agin the wires. Aabody had their ain patch. A merked oot mine wi twa lines, lik reid injun waurpent on the beach's brou. Naebody touched yer patch; fowk had weys o warkin then. Ma guid faither had a horse an cairt. Ye'd ti wauch yer horse didnae stummle owre the boulders an coal coom. Wance a horse got caught in the slurry pond aside the bing; A mynd it pauchlin in thon bleck quicksaun, wi the ropes stickin oot lik birstin veins, an its nostrils snortin curls o stoor. Aye, the coal's aa awa nou, bit mynd ye, sae are the pits. Some nichts, when the haar's up, there's a taiste ti the air, o sauty derkness. Thon wis the sea coal. Plantation Raw A street in the Coaltoun, its name maks ye think o mint juleps an cotton an the slaw yawn o bigotry. But here there’s nae verandahs, nae Southron belles or baas; the bleck muscles that brocht life are spent, an ruits gaither stoor. A raw o hooses wi a ghaist’s girn - aye. But when the Wemyss win swirls ye think that Scarlett twirls the flairs, dancin Dixie ti a people’s moothie sob. | frame
frame the sky and there is always one cloud that drifts past the edge one bird that darts beyond corners one star that glints above trim frame the sea and there is always one wave that rolls over mounts one fish that skips across borders one splash that soaks the canvas frame the self and there is always one sigh that moans through backings one tear that runs down the brickwork one smile that shatters the glass Wordings Some need their wording propped up and hinged; others, standing ecologically correct. But I need mine falling as child-cast twigs, divining line through space. The Bull Stone The bull stone, worn in the middle like a mother's aproned waist, strains against the tugging, pulling rope of my arms. A deaf conspiracy of grass has grown thick over the dancing ground, over the few torn feet of swollen scarlet earth the bulls were baited on. My tiny taurean hooves slip through the wet green, untethered, pink and yielding. I climb up the bull stone, crowned in daisies, robed in bed-linen. I am the white calf my black brothers invoked. Their blood is my ink. My words are their horns. I will gouge the land with my poetry. I am ivory-skinned and unsacrificeable. A spidery rain falls. The granite mouth of my great-aunt's house calls me in for my tea. I dismount myself, my bull stone, and snort at the lesser gods hiding in the sky. yin yang fir Harvey Holton the evening sun sings of his love for the blossom in sad flutes of flame mithers caa in bairns as the lane staur-keepin mune chitters in her sark sheep fade as flowers lost on fainting hillsides broom and pale heather a jeeble-jabble o milkie greys an charcoal the scrievins o trees the lamp’s liquid lure drawing moths to configure themselves as winged ash the doo’s couthie coo the crabbit crack o the craws twa in wan yin yang Ootsider The traivellers caa ye Stumpie; scabbit-lugged, wi hauf mahogany tail. Ane wid thraw ye in the pool; droon yer fousty fur, Menorcan weirdie. Anither jinks ye, allergic ti yer blether, auld feline leper. Bi the watterside a tattooed pierced wifie bathes an nane say a wird. Ti a Bairn Killt bi a Car I’m no yer faither, son. I’ve nae bluid-richt ti greet ma guts reid-raw. I didnae see yer face the day ye got thon pet fir free, the ane ye saved whan weird spat oot yer licht. I’m no yer faither, son. The enles sicht o bairnheid bleedin dry is spared fae me. I’ve no ti fauld yer jammies up an dree the daw, or stare awa the oors o nicht. I’m no yer faither, son. I dae hae fowk jink me i the toun, or fin the heidlines o yer daith roun chips or makin syvers chock. I’m juist a makar, son, wha kens nae quine’s ti feel yer kiss, nae bairn’s ti caa ye Paw: yet leeve ye wull whane’er ma horn I blaw. |
words and pictures © 2011 John Brewster music ℗ 2011 John Brewster graphics public domain, courtesy of wpclipart.com and karenswhimsy.com
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