Photography: From The Archive 01

Got sidetracked into actually looking at the pictures while backing up some old files. Realising that I haven't put anything up here for ...erm, a while, I thought I'd put some previously unseen photos, well, up here.

Poem: Birthday Poem For Lizzie Roberts #2

Hair long. Hair short. Hair extensions.

Blonde. Ash. Dark. Light. Shades.

Many people. One person.

Standing at the bus stop, early morning, traffic
Rolling by, all fumes and other lives.

We are the lives we lead, and
The lives we lead can change at any moment.

Tired, flu-filled, hung-over, whatever,
We are

Ourselves. You are

Yourself. And you

Stand at the edge of a cliff every day.
Stand proud on the pavement every day.
Stand proud in Superdrug on working days.
Sleep proud under the duvet on other days.

You are in a daze, most days.
You’re just a craze, most days.

You are ablaze, every day.
What would the world do without you?

The world can’t do without you.

Do what you do.
Be what you are, be that who, be who you are, be you.

In you every day the world is renewed.

Poem: 20.12.2012

Another day with a date that is
Significantly insignificant.

I got up after a strange but wonderful
   dream that I can no longer remember,

Danced to work inhaling pop music on a bus,

Interacted with my colleagues and
   customers in the usual pleasurable manner,

Eyed my crush from the corners of my eyes,

Interacted with my father and with my best
   friend via the medium of text message,

Read a good book while drinking, smoking
   and listening to nostalgia.

In short, an ordinary day.

20 December 2012

Poem: 12.12.12

The passing permanence of a
Pleasingly portentous date
Is something to be revelled in,
Despite its insignificance.

The fake notes and numbers hung upon
Artificial divisions set down in
The click of clocks in created seconds,
The calendar drawn up, hung,

Are prime examples of the illusions
We hang our lives upon,
And 12.12.12 is a reminder
That our world is printed over

The real Earth turning underneath
As we walk from day to day
And stand here in our painted place:
The fiction that we take for fact.

12 December 2012

Photography: Sunday October 21 2012

So, anyway, here are some images one might glimpse, if one happened to be ambling about Edinburgh on an autumnal Sunday in October 2012...

Poem: God Save The Queen

And the natives wear garlands –
Do they always wear garlands?
I doubt it.

Still, the food’s good.

Weddings. They tell me the whole world’s watching,
On various channels.

I watch my grandchildren.

The schedule – another red carpet
Leads up to an aircraft;
My husband admires the hardware.

I’ve done it so often, I do it so often,
So many years since I was me.

Think of me:

The only one silent as they sing the National Anthem.

29 June 2011

Poem: Anniversary Poem

Eleven long low years;
Eleven short slipped years.

A service to the nation.
A service to the poor.
A firework display.
A midnight crawl.
A thousand laid low words.
A hundred sweet sung notes.
A collision of hope.
A collision of sorts.
A collection of thoughts.
A connection of birds.

Eleven low left years;
Eleven sun stained years:
All I have to give.

All I gave I take back,
All I have you gave,
All you gave you will take back:
How many long low years?

28 June 1997

Photography: Leithscapes 01

Ten photographs taken in Leith:

Poem: Leap Year

In the hours of a day that normally
Doesn’t exist

We walk the minutes giving normality
A twist,

In a carnival caused by the
Curve of our trajectory,

Our movement turning slowly at
High speed through space.

We take the opportunity to turn
The direction of our story,

Challenge our selves, our
Circumstances, our place:

Discover this fiction that we have kissed.

29 February 2012

Poem: Princes Street Gardens

The park of lovers

In green gold sunlight,
Then clouded over,
Then green gold sunlight.

The eyes of others
Their eyes on others,

The park of lovers,
The home of lovers.

The city’s centre,
The city’s sunlight,
Then clouded over.

We move together,
Alone together,
The blades of pleasure.

15 September 2007

Poem: Suddenly

Suddenly deceit will stride into history,
Suddenly strangers will discard their mystery,

Suddenly bodies will sweat with a sweet consent,
Suddenly prophets will read the New Testament,

Suddenly killers will kiss in their prison cells,
Suddenly markets will see that it’s truth that sells,

Suddenly science will unlock another layer,
Suddenly colour will be but a fact of air,

And a billion small heroes pushing at walls,
The millions tip-toeing down forbidden halls,
Will not be around when the edifice falls,
Will die in the silence of their still-silenced calls,

So when suddenly comes let us suddenly stop
And remember the planting that led to the crop.

6 September 2011

Poem: Chain

Water and wine.
Wine and time.
Time and time alone.
Alone and alive.
Alive and awake.
Awake and aghast.
Aghast and relaxed.
Relaxed and restrained.
Restrained and open.
Open and listening.
Listening and speaking.
Speaking and sleeping.
Sleeping and pausing.
Pausing and continuing.
Continuing and ending.
Ending and laughing.
Laughing and glass.
Glass and stone.
Stone and water.

29 March 1997

Poem: Closing The Cage (After Edwin Morgan)

Not only do I have nothing to say
Tonight,
I have no intention of saying it.

                                             Oh.

31 October 2000

Poem: Luck

I never run out of air

To run on.  The cartoon cliffs
I run off

Retreat behind me and I run on.
When I’m lost in an openness of sky,
Suddenly I feel

Sudden earth beneath my feet
And I run on.

When I’m lost and lonely,
With no clear eyes to hold me,
And the valley far below me
Stretches hands out for my feet,

The air between my toes
Solidifies
And I
I’m still running – I am still alive.

25 September 2003

Poem: For Laura’s Birthday

This year
Dare to write poems:
   Words that wander, struggle, or
          Snigger across the page
   Or
   Words that suddenly splinter a
         thought into a shiver;
     It doesn’t matter:
Words are their own pleasure

And you have earned that pleasure
For daring to write the poem
    That you write by living life.

19 November 1997

Poem: Old

Nothing is old;
Every day dawned fresh and new.

History
Eats mornings, eats evenings,
Chews on fragments, statistics:
Sources.

The past is as alive as the future,
The present is a pause,
A resting place.

Current cultures
Are arbitrary, conditional, constructed
From current prejudices,
Passing circumstances.

Shrapnel, love, survival;
Nothing is new.
Everything is old.

We run through city streets,
Stumble across hillsides,

Seeing our world
From forgotten points of view.

22 February 2012

Poem: About You

I feel like I’m walking
In fresh water –
Am I going to swim
Or am I going to drown
In you?

I feel like I’m dancing
On low water –
Am I going to swoon
Or am I going to drop
For you?

I feel like I’m drowning
And simultaneously breathing
Through you.

Through you I might find
And through you I might fall,
And through and through
I might be renewed
Or just confused, but

I hope I’m true about you.

8 June 2003

Poem: Soul

In the chamber of the sacred heart
Sobriety is but a memory.
Tiered and teared, rows of pews
Retreat from the altar to the door

And behind the door the world
Crouches below the rows of stone steps
And a rose that rises forth
Climbing to the sun

Is worn in the hair,
The dark blue glowing hair of the world;
A soul singer,
Girlish by the barstool microphone

Breathing spirit onto the coil,
Amplifying the Word.
Her drinks are caught in her throat;
Their taste speaks her tongue.

19 April 1997

Poem: Response To Puritans

Jesus loved pleasure for pleasure’s sake;
He ate for eating’s sake:

Even after He was dead
He asked his friends for fried fish.

8 November 2000

Poem: To Helen

Helen, heaven crowned,
What do you know of this Earth?

You move in silence through
Each day with its dawn, each day with its dusk,

And you think
- I suppose you think -
You’re just another human.

I know that you’re not.

Helen you might not be
Meant for me
But leave that all aside and allow:

Whatever happens in your life –

You are a goddess, as a goddess wrecked Troy.

24 April 2005