Dundee renga for August

An August graveyard:
clouds’ long shrouded forms let heat
through onto bowed heads.

Purple globes of alliums ripen,
remember summer, and set seed.

Bones of new turbines
wait in piles on the dock yard;
wind wings past, still free.

The aince Regal cinema
is nou a rickle o stanes.

Swimmers plough lonely wakes,
shivered laughter planing like stones
across the Tay’s meniscus.

Steel curve of spoon hovers
over strawberry tart, strikes.

Schoolbairns back the day:
traffic like midgies gaithered
ower a simmer dub.

Midnight and sleep eludes me.
I count syllables, not sheep.

The vendanges have begun:
Narrow tractors scurry to vineyards
in a 5am rumble.

A dark nimbus blanket foretells rain,
bales now stacked waiting for tarp.

Allotment fruits
sit on greenhouse writing table,
rarely making it home.

It’s been a summer tending
towards green tomato cake.

Shoes aff on the sands,
scudding alang wi the clouds,
words lost tae the wind.

Michael Marra’s gravel tones
halt time at Mull piper’s grave.

Quiet woodpecker climbs
a swaying pine – the breeze sings
siren songs through needles.

A panicked spuggie thuds the kitchen pane.
Smug cat grabs her stunning breakfast.

Midnight in Arrochar:
lad proclaims his innocence to police.
He does protest too much.

Guest bedroom facilities
include hangovers it seems.

Thatcher bundles reeds
from the Tay and far beyond
cottage roof renewed.

Street lichts on at 9 p.m.
Aye, the nichts are fair drawin in!

Contributors

WN Herbert, Andy Jackson, Gail Low, Beth McDonough, Karen Macfarlane, Peter Marshall, Loretta Mulholland, Ann Prescott, Lydia Robb, Nikki Robson, Harry Smart, Frances Watt

Psalm X: Beth McDonough

How to Pogo into Graceland

Sometimes his mother rushes into her tight skin,
to learn again she’s entirely eggshells.
He is readying. He is pulsing on the pew. He is.

Shell spins, sends out its splintering text
to everyone. Not quite cracked. Not exactly shiny,
but not a wholly unappealing coating, either.
He is the very man to bounce to alleluias.

Brittle, at times; still, an adequate cover.
Who really needs to know much more of yolk?
Oh he is the very man to jump up in time to all those alleluias.

Today, she can unscramble.
Become remarkably hard-boiled. Cooled.
He keens to dance to every alleluia.

She observes. Begins to let herself admire his style.
He is pogoing, really pogoing, he is high on every alleluia.
He turns to the congregation. Charms. Now
arcs both jacketed arms, forms a Gothic arch above his head.

One foot on the kneeler, attempting crack prevention,
from all those alleluia pogo moments,
she finds how much she needs
to risk her eggshells,
pogo to alleluias. Grin.

Psalm IX: Sean O’Brien

Heraclitus of Halicarnassus
(after William Johnson Cory, after Callimachus)

they told me Heraclitus you were dead
they told me this was something that they’d read

they told me you were clearly off your head
since someone found you hanging in the shed

they added that the nightingales had fled
which was a lie, like every word they said

Psalm VIII: Peter McCarey

Lutherans

Sic grace and mercy nane can craif
Bot thay that troublit hartis haif.

Luther wrote off Purgatory
As the biggest scam in Europe;
Oligarchs binned their upgrades,
Reclaimed the real estate.

You’d to deal with God direct
And if you didn’t win, you lost.
Kirks were stripped to structure.
The anxiety could kill

And did. Though God
Would recognize his own,
He wasn’t aware of death
Or didn’t see it as a problem

Till Jesus died. Till Bach
Took up the ballads, the psalms,
The Ugaritic hymns to Baal they drew on
And magnified their grace.

I come in eirth, and their did dwell,
I send na message bot my sell.

Psalm VII : James Robertson

Wha is Chappin at Ma Door?

Wha is chappin at ma door?
Gang awa. I amna in.
I hae the pest: I’m stiff and sair,
 Baith het and cauld and haufweys blin.

There’s naebdy here. Jist walk on by.
I dinna like yir sleekit face,
Yir fancy claes or weirdo hair.
B’Christ, d’ye hink ye own the place?

Nae siller’s keepit in this hoose,
Nor bric-a-brac for charity.
I ken ye’re efter somethin. Weel,
Ye’ll no be gettin it fae me.

I hae the pest, I’ve tellt ye wance.
It isna safe tae hing aboot.
I amna in but if I wis
Ye widna want me comin oot.

For pity’s sake, there’s naebdy here.
Ye’re ontae plums. Desist and cease.
I’ve cawed the polis onywey,
Sae shift yir erse and gie us peace.

Are ye a Mormon or Jehovah’s? 
Ye’re mibbes deif or aff yir heid?
Aye, aye, the warld is endin soon –
Nixt-day delivery guaranteed –

But see, until the fower white vans
O the apocalypse appear,
Lea me alane, get aff ma street.
Vamoose, ya cunt, there’s naebdy here.

Wha is chappin at ma door?
The din is drivin me insane.
I’m in ma pit and dinna hink
I hae the strength tae rise again.

James Robertson (born 1958) is a Scottish writer who grew up in Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire. He is the author of several short story and poetry collections, and has published seven novels: The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still, The Professor of Truth, To Be Continued…. and News of the Dead  which has just won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022. The Testament of Gideon Mack was long-listed for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.

James also runs an independent publishing company called Kettillonia, and is a co-founder (with Matthew Fitt and Susan Rennie) and general editor of the Scots language imprint Itchy Coo (produced by Black & White Publishing), which produces books in Scots for children and young people.