National Poetry Day theme - Light

Sunlight Time

The Sunlight drifts down like a yellow foggy dust

It makes the trees immediate in their surrounding

It makes the “now” the cliffs

The clarity of water

Being is under its skin

Un-being is behind in the depths, the past

This land has all memory in the dark

None in the light

It is new under the Sun

It can be new for us too

If only thinking did not make it old

Known and familiar

If only knowledge had not cast its shadow over our minds

Our Nature

Before the beginning was the Word

The Word was in darkness

But Adam was in lightness

We need new eyes to look

At the world in the light it was made to be seen in

Hands at Work

Scrape on the river bed

Raise the rocks like you raise the dead

Pick the ground with the axe find the hole

Take out its claws

Clip Devils toenails, shells and barnacles

 Imbue with life ammonites and Brachiopods

Bring them back out of the dark

Lying there mud-bound for millennia quite happily

Read the lie of the land

This slope that dip

Roll up the rocks lift

With your hand

Dig up the turf,

Throw it down

Bore into the bank like a thief for the sand

Use the spade to cut out cubes of stringy

Rooty sodden peat, that is so water logged

You can hardly lift it

Precious, so precious this harboured flesh

Like a surgeon cutting out the Fat of the Land

It takes grit, it takes belief to make a path

A determination to reclaim that little piece of wild

The Path through the Pines

Pine wood pale against brown bark

Wooded blatant without a spark

Dull, latent furry animal warm

Yet like the scales of a reptile

Unmistakably firm

Acidic, acrid needles that hurt

A floor of compass pins

Lost in a haystack

Thorns pin-dropping in the dark

Wait listen and hear the wind

Through them stir

That chandelier rustle

Of glass blades chill shattering

As wraiths in the firs

Wet and waiting soldiers of Mur

Waiting to be roused by one of the three kings

The father leylandii bristling their beards

Then the spirit returns

In convection raising moss and fungal spores in religious

Direction

Until intoxicated the whole Pine forest stirs to listen

The glass wood splits, leaf pins shimmer and shiver their timbers

The holy Ghost of the hill side has breathed

And her sigh is felt overhead

As a guide to the spirit world and the lost traveller

Taking the path through the wood

Lost in translation – the Scottish accent

We broke 900 lights last night

We broke 900 lights

Next month we hope to break the one thousand mark

She said with some pride

I was abhorred – you mean you smashed them all of them?

On your own?

She looked at me quite dazzled

Said “it is as if you are an alien”

I said ‘light bulbs?’ still disbelieving

She said one word “Facebook”

And then, because I still wasn’t getting it - she reiterated more clearly

“I said Likes!”

Cow Hill

The cow jumped over the moon mama

The cow jumped over the moon

I saw it there where the scare crows stare

And the lovers in arms do croon

Upon Cow Hill my dear

The frogs are leaping and the moon is clear

But the heavy heifers are lowing

Their orange manes are blowing

But no cows jump over the moon.

But I swear, I swear mama, mama

That I saw it all the same

What you saw were the Cows on their way back Home

Down the track from where they came

Cow Hill Surrealists

Yeast on risen hills

Wind blown

To unleavened valley floors

The rock cakes, moon rock, bakes

The hot-hearted peoples

Maroon and move

In battle with cattle

They lock horns

Of the army of moos

Down on cow hill

Factories of Aluminium Shields resound in chants

Rio-tinto, Rio-tinto in tribal tones

And tin soldier, drummer boys

Who plough fertile moon fields

That lay in conspicuous towering caravans

And lessen the lassoes from

The wild musket rams

Sermon on the Mount

Up in the mountains

Where the honey runs sweet

The Glen is heather lined like rows of springy seats

Feathers of an Eagle are found on a rocky crag

Pine trees sway in the breeze

As if a billowing flag

Up on the rocky paths of stone

Where the carrion crow hop

And pick apart the rabbit bone

Or a sheep’s eye goes pop

Where the temperature freezes

In the spring breezes

And an April shower shows in snow

That a fool may be locked in an ivory tower

With a Raven or a crow

What do you want to know of Mountains?

And why do you ask?

We stand as old as Moses

Mountain Ash grew his staff

Dwarf willow were is companions

The eye bright shone his way

Tormentil cured his stomach aches

And his food improved by bay

He clambered like a picking monk

Choosing herb and flower

The mountain ringlet butterfly

Bought him rings of flight

Through sun’s power

He danced among the butterwort

And down a cooling den

A mountain buttress had over shadowed

As a church may do a garden

He found between the cloven feature

A wriggling running rill

Giving rise to heath bedstraw, Ladies mantle

Celandine and daffodil

Everlasting were the purple flowers

Geranium in lush tussocks

Damp and wet the spongy peat

Facing out with Carex

These were rain mountains

The sky did shower with her gifts

These were old Gods now forgotten

But for the passing swifts

To these Moses walked in sandals

To these vigils made by Pilgrim candles

From these now we turn our head

As the living do from the dead

And yet these Gods yet survive

Holding Oberon fairy lives

Like Ransomed kings

From Widowed wives

They bleed their suffering waters baptised

From these Gods we draw our Nourishment

 River’s swell and Glen’s green Blandishment

Even now electric bulbs and bells

Are powered by their hydro wells

We call it ‘green’, call it man’s invention

But it is just the Mountain God’s intention

To keep his children well with water

As the fatherland set free the river daughter

And we drink and think with laughter

How well this Mountain does us look after

Facing North

The Cliffs of the Tower ring their bells

With Starwort Saxifrage

And Alpine Speedwells

The walls of the castle are highest with might

And the route by the ledge is demanding of plight

This fortress mountain in a blanket of Snow

Becomes a strange moonscape only intimate confidents know

And flourishing well down to their roots

Are the wood rushes and sedges, grown where the burn fills your boots

Little dwarves, little gems on a Rhinoceros hide

 Like some marvellous adornment to a most ugly bride

Yet the clouds are her veil

And when they sometime move aside

They reveal like a sail

Her soft and delicate side

But, then, her Majesty in Cathedral like organs

Are played by the wind demons

Who move beneath her brogans

These smooth Ballein features

Like slippers worn smooth

That lie like sea creatures

So still that never move

Her buttresses are ear-marked

With climbers rings

Yet even these tracks well harkened

Have not been fully listening

The sheer imagination that gave rise to the plan

Is pure intimation of what He will do, He can

His design shows such majesty it is beyond mortal words

No mind can comprehend though they visit in hoards

Just to be among greatness, to walk on its mile

To feel the rock of ages, cracked in a frozen smile

To let the Mountain know

That it is worshipped in homage

Come wind, rain or snow

They will seek out rare saxifrage

The Windy Top

Aspen Tremble in the wind

The Willow up turn their silver skin

Among the Yorkshire fog that sways

Upon the hill Dun Deardail way

A moving spirit whose pitch and toss

Is that invisible force to which

The grass seeds are at a loss

What makes the wind blow?

Why do we feel these molecules

Become our consciousness?

Our minds are the grassy fields

We have flesh that is of the earth

And souls made of the wind

And when the wind blows

We may lose ourselves like

The mind set free from the skin

I sat upon Dun Deardail hill

And listened to the wind

The sun was an eye

In the blazing blue sky

And the summit’s voice all surrounding

Down from their crests the cold cries flew

As messengers with some God given truth

And they laid their wordless meanings down

On the grass blades of this hill fort roof

The foggy sway of the seed heads

The bend and lilt of the wild flower

Showed just how nature would obey the voice

Of the Mountain’s power

The wind was blowing still as I left

And followed the winding path down

But I had been warmed on the Fort’s sunny crest

That sat on the hill’s head like a crown

How do you know the Sea?

How do you know the sea?

It is salt packed

Resin baked in obscurity

It is floated

Pine –goated, sure throated liver

Which sings for its meals

From the God-cloud giver

It is rain-hungry swaying mountains and mounds

Which sway in the graveyard of heart thumping sounds

It is beneath the surface and underneath the skin

The greatest secret ever kept from the opening

How do you know the Sea?

You cannot really know unless you’ve searched

From the Loch to the quay

Running on the Mountain

Thunder on the Mountain

And a rumble in the heart

Blood curdles in fountains

The red burn sunders apart

Everybody is running

I want to run too

I want a beginning in some place new

All my life is running

Together through the stream

Like Salmon swimming

Uphill trying to reach the impossible dream

Everybody is running

And time is running out

The bream is fresh

With new life I don’t begin to doubt it

Union Road

The union is undressed

It lies naked as a flower

Here and there the clouds graze low

As planes beside a tower

The mists of the forests sweep down

As sleep descends on Fort William town

And the black loch lies like a dragon

Deep in the confines of his bower

Black are the pools

And cold as a throbbing heart

Eecking out the stress of the years

The way an urchin eats a tart

Gorging on the succulent moss

And sobbing on the green rock

The mountain bleeds with pine seeds

The way a bread loaf falls apart

Living on Union Road

I’m living on Union Road

But we are so divided

My mind is two sided

And this country is in the jaws of a shark

A tree lies like a match on the slope side

Then a thousand more over the park

But a puff of smoke by the rail side

Is enough to cause a forest to spark

Puff on old Billy, puff on

The rebels are hauling their chains

You can hear them in the falling rains

Laying the sleepers to Lanark

You can feel the Jacobites march

That footfall in the Glen through the dark

Now that Scotland will be free once again

All it takes is a steam train to spark

Oh the Union is undressed

And lays like a flower in the cold

Standing as the Thistle grows

Ever new to the fight

Ready for  a war with the Rose

Living on Union Road once again

Yes I’m living on Union Road

There is method in the madness

And tears in my sadness

While I’m living on Union Road

Times Of Tumult -Scotand

Steall Falls – July 2015

The livid falls clash

Eking out, bleeding over brims of rocks

Hard bone shoulders

Spraying fountains, broadcast seed

Blooming flowers in white showers screed

Up around a stubborn crag

It almost stops and then turns back

But finds another stairs to descend

A secret passage a making mends

It knits its woven braids of hair

A white mane folding

As from a polar bear

Ferocious, simple, stark and blind

It bungles over time after time

It is a great divider, boundary line

That cold hand of nature

Has clasped its minds

Where water bears its inky soul

Into the well where the white words fall

And are written out

Stretched in lines over

River beds and rocky climbs

They give its voice as children’s laughter

Approaching clatter

Of pounding hooves

White noise chatter incessant

Red riding riddle

I sat in the wood

with my favourite hood

eating my four finger nail

Along came Caesar I said hail

Now there's a bad wolf

doing good

There's a sad ship and no sail

On a penniless farm

where they raised the animal alarm

My old mother she ran

the cooking of food

then said the bear

what's on the menu,

is it hen stew

No said good locksy

who's treasure is under

lock and key

Its paws rich or porridge to you

You must find old Noah

He knows Frank owes him the key

or else he is the key buried in the sea

Now there was bad Jonah

up to no good

Lost a lot of diamonds in the sale

they might be up my sleevies

but I'll borrow an army

Said Noah well I owe you a flood

Then Frank from the ocean cried

What's the commotion

I saw Jonah he says he's

locked in a whale

So Noah said now Frankie

you know you can be coy

Let him know you are the key

Be a good boy

But old bad Frankie he wouldn't

touch the sea

He said I prefer sun sets not set sails

And full of this mirth he remained on the earth

Until Jonah could recover his tail

Noah said somewhere I left my head

It's buried in a book I read

I think they may have called it good

said Locksy with a smile

I'll see you after a while

just in time to collect your flood

It's been brewing inside me

but from it you cannot hide me

I felt nauseus so thought

I'd go downstairs

but without my barometer

it's cold and no thermometer

beside the wood is now covered with bears

Oh Holy medallions said

the Spanish galleon

who'd just finished circumnavigating

the globe

I cannot even count all of them

the treasure we've on board of 'em

Now help me unload Noah

don't be scared

So the two of them unloaded

both Frankie and him that’s exploded

And shook the star dust

from their hair

Now there's the sea I owed you

I'll thank you to abode me

while I chase Goldie locks from her bear

There's Cantonese surprises

and witches of all disguises

A wizard you may be and I shan't care

Just shave me and delay me

My boat doesn't leave till Tuesday

And Mrs Noah's anxious I'll be there

Can I beg you for my disguises

I've loved but without surprises

And now Locksy's just cut off

her golden hair

Now Frankie he is the key

but to be sure of sanctuary

You got lose the honest

crop to share

there may be no surprises

and the nose and thick rimmed surmises

will point to the tower with

the spiral stair

and up in its very topmost quarter

is a king's long haired daughter

and she may throw down her curls

to a worthy dare

So pluck up your courage

Frankie boy

be honest its not a decoy

the real treasure lies with her

up there

And sure enough they made it

into the sunset now they've faded

Frankie boy and his long-locked lady fair

There is nothing happening

The willow wilts beside the pine

The sure man steps over the line

The pair of lovers kiss then recline

And it happens in the prism of the mind

The face falls softly and is buried in the snow

The owl coos gently to the summer crow

And faintly a heart is heard beating in their tow

Like the sheep bleating in the field

Or the pig searching for the sow

The moon is cousin to the kicking sun

The stars and satellites are burning

Like a torch of marathon

The needles are in the hay stack

And the wine is in the cellar

And the porter on the station platform

Is talking with the newspaper seller

Couples disembark trains and meet

As in a garden old friends greet

The spring turns slowly into summer

As April days end in rain like a beating drummer

Firemen roll up their hoses

Old ladies at bus stops blow their noses