by Ron Butlin
the JENNERS DEPOSITORY!
You’ll hear tales of locks, bolts
and security, tales of storage –
long-term personal storage.
Best to pray your tram’s already on its way …
SAUGHTON
Here the tram grows up into an adult train, running
on the straight and narrow. Citywards it goes
to seek its fortune …
and then returns, urged on by the winds
of change, the winds of opportunity.
Always the wind, the wind,
the wind …
BANKHEAD
Work? Study? Here’s where to come!
You can Makro and Screwfix, Parcel and Plumb.
When the buying and selling and learning are done,
clamber aboard and sit yourself down …
You can rest, for soon you’ll be home.
EDINBURGH PARK STATION
CUT-PRICE! DISCOUNT! SALES!
You’re loaded up with bargains?
Stay upon the rails!
Home by car or tram or train or bus?
The choice is surely obvious!
Why busy-station, traffic-jam it,
when you can easy-glide, and tram it!
EDINBURGH PARK CENTR AL
Glass hillsides line this sober business glen.
Come summer, there’ll be picnic-ceilidhs when
Diageo gets frisky
– and turns the waterfall to whisky!
GYLE CENTR AL
Let’s stop and shop a while.
No lifeless mouse-click screens. Here’s REAL!
Real shops, real people,
a mall that has real style.
Cash or card, and service with a smile!
GOGARBURN ( for RBS)
A magic wand created these glass-and-mirror palaces
out of reflected cloud and sky, like money itself
created out of nothing but
human trust – and without it, everything is lost,
including us.
INGLISTON
Park it Lock it Leave it.
No traffic mess, no stress. Believe it!
Be a rush-hour loafer –
here’s your tram, your chauffeur!
AIRPORT
The first stop, and the last –
the future begins …
and so does the past.
If you’ve just landed here on Earth,
then welcome!
If you’re about to leave us – safe return!
In 2004 Edinburgh sent a delegation to Brussels. They returned the same day, the capital of Scotland having been designated the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature.
What the Well-Dressed City Wears
Feeling good after a spot of devolution,
our country’s capital hung up
its pressed-tight, three-piece suit,
kicked off its brick-thick brogues
(the ones with business
toecaps) and, lighter now by several centuries,
hopped …
skipped …
and jumped
(the Castle …
Calton Hill …
and Leith)
across to EuroLand.
Bureaucratic blessing! Same-day turnaround!
Back home to Scottish rain that runs to
whisky faster than
it’s poured …
New-named, new-branded Edinburgh will cut
its own imaginary cloth
out of nothing,
trimming for a perfect fit.
Now on you go, Auld Reekie! Strut
your literary stuff around the globe –
wearing the miracle of words, and nothing but!
The Ninth Roman Legion invaded Scotland c120AD, and was never seen again. It was all so very, very long ago, and yet …
The Roman Invasion of Scotland
Thanks to the ruler-straight road from here to Rome
and back again, we saw them coming miles away.
Call up the bards to verse and curse!
Druids to stop the clocks, freeze-frame
the weather, make screen-shots of the day
ten cohorts of six hundred men
came clambering over the Wall.
That was the Roman invasion of Scotland,
the one and only.
2,000 years on they’re still here, still wandering
the Celtic mist, still taking wrong turns
on the wrong tracks in the long-gone
Forest of Caledon.
For them, it’s a late November afternoon,
and always will be. Darkness falling,
night ahead, and always,
always raining.
Sinister … dexter / Sinister … dexter …
*
The Pentland Hills in summer –
a cloud passing over the sun.
Sudden chill. Sudden skirl of sleet
from an empty sky.
Here they come – IX Legio Hispana!
So worn-out now. So skin-and-bone weightless.
Their buckles, belts and body-armour
tattered air; their shields
and swords trails of rust …
We watch them march march
march across Flotterstone Water
making hardly a ripple.
(Not the sort of invasions we view on YouTube –
Blockbuster wars with blockbuster budgets!
SHOCK AND AWE, and the sequel
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM
with its drones, its jets,
its PR threats –
all for $77 billion.
Tomahawk missiles at $1 million per,
delivering freedom and democracy …)
Sinister …dexter / Sinister … dexter …
*
Look close. How many lifetimes does it take
to read what’s right before our very eyes?
Pictish runes, sprayed graffiti,
hidden landmines …
The future’s scripted everywhere around us –
Carefully then, so very carefully, let’s brush aside
these last few grains of sand …
*
One day soon (give or take a million years),
Scald Law and Carnethy will have levelled down
to folded layers of white-heat, seared-red
rock that ebbs and flows,
cooling to form its new geology –
ancient lives and ours long gone.
The Pentlands freeze over. The cold sun
barely risen, makes evening shadows
of all that has been said and done.
Sinister … dexter / Sinister … dexter…
This set of poems celebrates the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014, the athletes and some of their countries, and was performed there with jazz band Dr Lee’s Prescription.
The Commonwealth Games
1. STARTING THE RACE
Starts with a breath
Deep breath and again
Muscle and mind, tension and strain.
Breathe in, breathe deep,
breathe, breathe,
breathe till you keep
your muscle, keep your mind, keep
keep, keep your muscle,
your mind, your soul poised
as one –
for the race was begun
a long time ago.
*
And so –
you are here. And so
you are now.
And this is the here –
This is the now …
The briefest split-second to go,
time starts to slow …
Your muscles, your mind, your soul start to flow
into each other,
and all
into this –
The bliss of the perfect, the moment …
The bliss
of the race …
beginning …
NOW!!!
2. AFRICA
Once was dark,
was darkness –
blazing into light!
Light trance, light born,
life dance, life song –
YES, dance! YES, dance!
YES!
Sing the roads and rivers,
Sing the tracks and trails.
Sing Sahara sandstorms
YES!
Sing skies and grasslands,
lakes and shore.
Continent a song, a dance floor –
Bless the dancers and their dance as one!
Bless the singers who become
their song –
YES, dance! YES, dance!
YES!
Sing fast-money, sing fast cities,
dance the township home,
Rainbow-shimmer, cascade roar,
Shining, shining as never before!
YES!
Sing the street, the beat,
the heart, the heat –
where rhythm’s king
till Kingdom Come!
YES! Dance. YES! Dance.
YES!
3. RUNNING THE RACE
Silence …
Not a sigh, not a word, not a –
Sssh!
Stillness …
stilled breath
… stilled body
before …
the pistol is raised –
before …
the pistol…
is steadied …
is fired!
Wired,
inspired,
and all at once done –
The race has begun!
*
Regions, countries
stripped down for speed –
All rushing forward,
all for the need
to go and keep going –
Fast from the block,
fast on the straight,
fast on the curve –
faster the muscle,
faster the nerve,
straining, gaining …
Stride and feel
toe-stamp and heel
turning the track –
turning the earth!
Spikes digging deep,
to keep the earth turned
to the beat of their hearts,
to the heat of their blood.
The race is the start
and the end of it all –
Body and mind, spirit and soul.
Moment of wholeness –
Moment of grace –
THE RACE! THE RACE! THE RACE!
4. INDIA (RAGA)
Brahmaputra, Dhaleswari, Kushiyara, Kalcodonga
Punpun, Damra,
Punpun, Darma …
Bamba Dhura, Chandrashila,
Kalanag, Nanda Khat,
Kalanag, Bama Dhur …
Mentok, Mentok, Nag Tibba,
Mentok, Mentok, Nag Tibba …
Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh
Odisha, Orissa, Bihar, Rhajasthan …
Gujarat, Goa, Assam,
Gujarat, Goa, Assam …
Amril, Amni, Anand,
Baddi, Baruch, Baruch
Amril, Amni, Anand …
Etawa, Dhampur, Etawa, Dhampur,
Gaya, Gaya, Jalna, Kanda,
Gaya, Gaya, Katni, Kanda,
Gaya, Gaya, Gaya …
5. CARIBBEAN
The downtown street’s a reggae beat,
Sun-island melting sugar-sweet.
Blue-water sky, clam-coral sea,
Reggae is king, reggae is free!
No master, no slave, no more –
History’s sand blowing the shore,
history’s wind criss-crossing the cane,
master / slave all over again …
But not on these islands, not in these seas
where the reggae beat heartbeat’s
shaking the trees,
where traffic goes offbeat rhythm to please
the dancer, romancer, financer
and chancer taking their ease
at ninety degrees
in the shade.
They’ve all got it made!
*
The downtown street’s a reggae beat,
Sun-island melting sugar-sweet.
Blue-water sky, clam-coral sea,
Reggae is king, reggae is free!
6. AUSTRALIA (DREAMTIME)
ROO, OZ, OZ, ROO –
Didgery – Didgery –
Didgerydoo!
OZ, ROO, ROO, OZ –
Because …
Red rock core, sun-crazed heart,
hollowed-out sun-blazed art.
Breathless birth to dreamless death,
breath that never stops for breath.
Heat to seize and squeeze the trees,
bursting seed to flame –
to live and die,
and live again.
OZ, ROO, ROO, OZ –
Always is, always was.
Past’s a dream we’ve slept right through,
Present’s what we’ve woken to.
ROO, OZ, OZ, ROO!
The future’s coming true!
7. GLASGOW
Constructing the seven seas,
welding the world together –
Clyebuilt hulls.
Clydebuilt plates and rivets.
Bulwarks, bulkheads,
gangways, decks.
Constructing the five continents,
binding capital to capital,
country to country –
Springburn locomotives,
Springburn couplings, cabs,
smokestacks, pistons, valves.
Steam City, Power City,
Iron and Girder City!
Dockyards, rails, slipways, foundries.
John Brown’s, Fairfield,
the Finnieston Crane!
Built the world once, and will build it again!
*
Blasted clean of smoke and grime –
New City, Now City!
Sky-scraping Glass-and-Mirror City!
Roads that rush and …
swerve and …
soar!
Till far and near are curves of air.
Circle within Circle – descend
deep down …
and rise!
Always, always rise!
Futures bought and futures sold
on a million …
billion … .
trillion
electronic pathways.
New City! Now City!
Global City Glasgow!
Though born in Edinburgh, I spent much of my twenties and thirties drifting here and there across the globe, all very pleasurably. It wasn’t until I stood in the Calvinist grip of a Scottish winter’s afternoon that I at last accepted my Scottishness. Since then I have rejoiced in it!
Near Linton Burnfoot
Tarred roads, metal cattle-grids and wheel tracks mesh
so tightly no land can escape. Tractor ruts
cut deep into the grass to cross and double-stitch
the fields together. Where the high ground pushes upwards,
pylons rigid with electricity stand guard
upon the hills. Bridges staple running water,
lines of fence-posts nail the valley sides in place.
Rain and ploughed mud. Rooks’ cries claw the air,
a banshee trapped in corrugated iron shrieks
to be released. Trees grasp at nothing,
and let go. It is a scene a child has painted,
splashing colours on sodden paper:
his carelessness might tear a mountainside apart.
Shingle being ground to nothing on the riverbed,
the clouds’ silence soaking into the hills –
these are secrets I dare not tell
even to myself. They give weight
to every moment of my life.
MAGIC PEOPLE
<
br /> Having sulked in Loch Ness for centuries, would Nessie have welcomed the recent referendum?
The Loch Ness Monster’s Post-referendum Curse
Behold my northern stretch of sullen, sunless
rock-hard, wind-scarred, rain-lashed cold,
cold water. My dark-fathomed kingdom,
my home.
They hauled me up from the depths –
for a photo-op!
They websited me!
Facebooked me!
YouTubed my coils!
A Profile on LinkedIn I was supposed to complete!
Me? …
Me? …
Me … whose hundred-year, thousand-year
roar could have battle cry-ed our nation –
and they wanted me to tweet?
*
Now they’ve had their referendum,
I’ll download the lot –
Then DELETE, DELETE, DELETE!
Towards the end of his life the Polish composer Chopin [1810-49] visited Edinburgh, staying briefly in Stockbridge. He was already in very poor health.
Frédéric Chopin Tweets from the Edinburgh Hogmanay Party
A year before he died, Frédéric Chopin stood outside
his Stockbridge flat and looked up
at the stars.
Could the pull of their distant gravities restore his–?
Next moment (feet hardly touching the cobbles,
Georgian elegance shuddering in his slipstream),
he’s accelerating 150 years and more
into the future.
Blurring past lanes that fist staccato—
hammered scherzos,
past railings that finger-click mazurkas,
past clubs, boutiques and basement bars
going into meltdown.
Edinburgh’s skyline cascades upwards as a rushed
arpeggio of slate and sunlight.
*
Arriving at Princes Street in time to catch
the last few minutes of the last day
of 2013.
So many men, so many women. Hundreds
of them, thousands of them, standing room only.
Day-Glo security, barricades …
Has there been a revolution?
Has he missed it?
Chopin hits the Gardens molto-precipito –
*
Give the man a welcome, a mobile and a hashtag –
keyboard-friendly fingers like his
deserve a touchscreen!
The blood I coughed up, soaked into
the rolled-out map of history.
We tweet our sympathy. Retweet.
The pogroms, the ghettos, the death camps …
We tweet the offer of a wall on Facebook.
My country has been torn apart again and again …
Almost midnight! Time for a glorious en masse
elevation of our smartphones:
we’ll capture the fireworks showering
the Castle with coloured light.
My country disappeared as if it had never –
We’ll put him on YouTube:
Celebrity composer Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849),
tweeting
his thoughts about a Polish-style independence
for Scotland.
I weep, how I weep –