My Blog

Category: Poetry

  • Mon petit chou

    Update 14.05.2020 – Was NO-ONE going to point out the grammatical error in the title? Biggest surprise of this week though was the delivery of advance vegetables,  in advance that is by about a week of when they were expected. Nothing daunted*,  I have been farming out chunks of cabbage and leek, with some lovely…

  • Straight up

    Some pictures from yesterday and this week.   I have very little to say about the increased craziness that is the 21st century.  Ali and I had a lovely walk round the Pentlands reservoirs yesterday, and yes, there were dogs.                                …

  • Fludde

    Today I heard this ballad read out, and after much rootling around I found a sound file or two. The Ballad of the Deluge   by W D Cocker (1882 – 1970) The Lord took a staw at mankind, A righteous and natural scunner. They were neither tae haud nor tae bind, They were frichtit nae…

  • Windy

    Still on the poetry tack, another which always comes to mind at the turn of the year, deservedly much loved, written by old “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. *   Particularly apt given the overnight weather conditions.  WordPress has removed some of the spacing,  apologies. (*Kirsty removed some of the grammar, likewise. ) Ode…

  • Visionary

    Having at last arrived in a decade with a proper name, let’s see if the  powers that be can arrive at any version of political and environmental sanity,  although It’s already kicking off in a fairly non-positive way. Here’s a hopeful poem for 2020. Toad Stop looking like a purse.  How could a purse squeeze…

  • Robin Reliant

     I rely on you I rely on you like a Skoda needs suspension like the aged need a pension like a trampoline needs tension like a bungee jump needs apprehension I rely on you like a camera needs a shutter like a gambler needs a flutter like a golfer needs a putter like a buttered…

  • Unabridged

    Here’s a challenge. The Flock in the Firth As Eh cam owre the Forth rail brig Eh saw frae oot o Fife a farrachin o starlins’ trig as the thochts o ane waukrife   Lyk sheelock fae a thrashin mill they mirlieit the nicht atween thi brigs, as tho ate fill ut wi wan shammade…

  • November 2018

    So. Just home from an all too brief trip to Slaley Hall, for the last time.  Nothing lasts forever and we, as a group, have decided it’s time to move on.  Journeying there for the first time by electric car, we called in at various chargers in the Borders towns.  I was struck by the…

  • One that got away

    Patagonia by Kate Clanchy I said perhaps Patagonia, and pictured a peninsula, wide enough for a couple of ladderback chairs to wobble on at high tide. I thought   of us in breathless cold, facing a horizon round as a coin, looped in a cat’s cradle strung by gulls from sea to sun. I planned…

  • Lightworks

    Aberdour beach just before sunset in February, after a long week at work.                       Saw this exhibition yesterday,  small but interesting (who said eclectic?) collection of paintings by the Glasgow Boys, including Arthur Melville, E A Hornel, George Henry and William J Kennedy.   Fife has…