I’m looking over some of the scraps of poems I’ve got lying about. This isn’t on my usual beat, but before I get back there – poems about irises and archaeology and (probably) a lot of wet leaves, what do you think? The oddness of all those incidents haunts me.
Quiet Glasgow Night
The drunk man rails at the statue.
Waste of space. Tosser. Fanny merchant.
Fanny merchant. Fanny merchant.
Dewar stares doggedly down the street.
Three boys film the skater who jumps
the railings, meets the board,
crashes at the foot of the steps.
He shakes his wrist. His knees are covered
with blood and bruises. He jumps again.
Two phones deliver, “I’m on the train.”
The blonde opposite marks up a chapter
on problems designing steam turbines.
The metaller across from me
takes out a guitar, fills the carriage
with Smoke on the Water.
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