Category: poetry

At dawn, a gosling stands upon the lake
He doesn’t fly or swim
He’s fake
He’s driftwood?
Grains, or bars upon his wings?
There’s things suspiciously like other things

Five times a day the trains
From London mostly, Edinburgh and Wick
Disgorge their loads of promises and pains
The visitors come fast
And thick

They chafe at their disguise
They groan
Forlorn, they stumble over stones
And underneath the surface cables hum

The cameras are tucked from view
The Starlink dish is new
A winch to drag the carcasses
A gun

Each year the leaves fall a little more,
The thickened tree-arms spark
With frost in the park,
where other middle-aged men
Kiss dogs that don’t belong to them.

These men consume their friends like food.
But underneath pond-scum and weeds
A man retains his hair, his needs.
Why won’t you stay for good?

I wandered lonely as a sock
Discarded on the floor
To consummate our passion
Till I couldn’t handle more

Although you made my skin crawl
I wish you all the best
I’d love to pop it in the post
But don’t have your address

While I was distracted
The grey hairs appeared
First in the temples
And then in the beard

Meanwhile on the Cuillin ridge
In flats with empty beds inside
A slim fin of rock waited and waited to be sat astride

The so-called “peak of the young men”
Who got stuck at the planning stage
Hoping they would somehow gain attractiveness with age

Still with none of the instruments studied
Something wells up and up
The window was open
You wanted to jump

Several times, but something else always came up