Edinburgh Revisited

The cow and the photographerBeddit in ma comfy grund Chowin’ on ma dreams I spied ye wi ma half shut ee An’ heard yer pechs and groans. As on ye struggl’t up ma hill An’ heft up oan yer back A monster wi three legs or mair Came climbin’ oot yer sack. A many splindered whirligig It danced upon the rocks Until ye got the better o’ it An’ tied it doon wi blocks The horny-goloch wisnae beat Its legs it push’d an’ sprouted An’ afore I even kent ma’sel I had hupped and shouted. But as the sun began to rise It clutched ye tae its breest Despite ma warnings and ma cries It wis aboot tae feast. So up I stotted tae yer aid I couldnae tak nae mair An’ looked the beastie in the eye An’ gied ma cauldest stare. But whit a stramash did ye stir Ye shouted, screamed and cried An’ then ye picked a muckle stane An’ at ma heid ye shied. Weel patience din I charged ye baith It folded wi’ a shunt An’ you ye graceless donnert man Went fleein’ wi a dunt. An’ galloped aff wi scittered shanks Yer breek arse at yer ankles Wi’oot a single word o’ thanks As the monster lay in fankles.

The ‘Bloody’ FringePushed to one side,We see the citySlide from out our hands,In annual separation;The wandering audienceOn their migration,Like Serengeti wildebeest,Driven on by instinct,Following, following,The stars, whileThe big cats lie,Waiting idly under trees,Before picking off the weak;Overhead the vultures glide,Lifting on the August airUntil they diveTo pick on the dried bonesOf anxious comedians;“Who are you for?”The hyena asks,But still they comeThe acrobats and clownsThe students and the brave,Throwing themselvesAgainst the wall of hope;“Leave us be”, we cry,And all too soon it does,Departing suddenly,With an embrace,A fleeing lover’s farewell;A Kiss - adieu;Until next year.

Prince's Street Conversations A river of conversationsSnatched in the passingTumble downstream In a wall of broken sound, Eavesdropped from other worlds,The private and banal,The intimate and profane,The guttural grunts,The over-engineered sentences, Of Morningside ladies, The voices of the continents,The language of the streets,Shouting and whispering, Gossiping, Loving and hating, Promising,Pleading, Lying and trusting, But passing by, They fade together,To a single passage, Eventually,Emptying out, To that placeWe dare not Care to Mention.

Waves against the windWe are waves against the windAnd have two ways to reach the shoreBy keeping low we hide behindThe crashing waves that lead the blindBut those who dare to rise and fightAnd lead the charge in selfless flightCan bear their chests against the stormTheir silver manes give god-like formThey shout and roar their battle cryWhilst lifting up their pennants highOf danger they need take no heedAnd live their lives at reckless speedOn reaching shallows stand their heightBefore they drop their heads mid-flightAnd crash and die and live no moreAmidst those of us who slide ashore.

One O’clock Gun In those Disappearing secondsBefore the hour,A weapon lies, Prepared and primed,And aimed uponThe uncertainty of time;Down below,Defenceless masses,Trudging throughThe business of their day,Dig into theirOblivious positions;As a timepiece Gives the order to discharge,And the city echoes, To the monstrous Anger of the gun, Dispatching Unprotected bodies to the air;"Advance"The unforgiving clock commands,Occupy the hoursBeyond this point,Never tread this time again,Until tomorrow, When in those Disappearing secondsBefore the hour,The weapon willFire once againA battle of attrition,From which No victory Comes

Blue Planet We went to the National MuseumTo wait in a winding queue To see a piece of moon rock,It was grey and disappointing,And unimpressed, I spent The rest of my time wandering,Lost under the Blue Whale,Trying to take in its scale,This traveller of the globe,Reduced to a skeleton,Swimming above my head,One of 10 million objects,But only the topOf the pyramid on show,The rest stored carefully Under dustsheets,Embodying our world,Yet when I think backTo the astronaut,And his small step for man,Picking up that piece of rock,He could block out theWhole of the blue earth,With only the topOf hisThumb

SALISBURY CRAGS The terracotta curtainCollects the evening sunBy hanging the cliff-face,In the air,Tipping back upon itself Like a broken flagstone,Cantilevered,Against the Momentary city,Angling back,Effortlessly,Towards the sky,Revealing the groundBeneath our feet,The hard rock,Floating in space,The Dolerite layersThe Basalt columns,Aligned withSlide-rule perfectionBy nature's Eye,A seamlessCounterweight, to The random geometryOf Edinburgh’sSloping silhouette.

Edinburgh Castle Guardians Sir William Wallace:“I got up this morning. I like to get up in the morning;It gives me the rest of the day to myself.” King Robert the Bruce: “I was out walking the other evening. This fellow stopped me, And asked if that was the moon up there in the sky.I told him that I had no idea as I was a stranger here myself.” William Wallace: “No Bad.Bobby, is it possible to mistake Schizophrenia for telepathy?I hear you ask?” Robert the Bruce: “Like it.There's a new slimming course just outWhere they remove all your bones. Not only do you weigh less, But you also look so much more relaxed.” Wlliam: “Brilliant.I admit to spending a fortune in my time on women,Drink and gambling. The rest I squandered.” Robert: “Ha ha.I saw this tourist last week.He was dressed as a cowboy.Wi’ a broon paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper troosers.He was wanted for rustling.” Wullie: “Oh Bobby that’s a gid yin.I'm no a fan of the new pound coin, But then again, I hate change." Bobby: “Aye weel Wullie,You and I won’t be gawn anywhere soon,So we micht as weelEnjoy oorsels!”

The Scotsman Building Stand outside the building, when no one is watching, And place your hand against the stone, To feel its gentle thrum, or, late at night, listen Carefully to hear the oiled presses roll;For this was a heavy industry where ships were built, Leviathan carriers of the truth, That launched across the world to a daily deadline;Deep into the morning dark the lorries rolled, The trains departed carrying the news, And behind them the words soaked into the walls, The ink saturating through the floors, The men and women starting every day afresh, Setting out to build another craft, Feeding the never-ending beast;And round and round the circle went, Until, one day, the deadline missed, The news departed, shape shifting, Leaving behind its anachronistic past;But join me and place a hand upon the stone, Feel the gentle thrum from deep within its soul, For this is a building, That will forever keep its Word.

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT The Spaniard upturned the boats,Heaving them over with his imagination,Manhandling them with elegant precision,To capsize our narrow expectations,Of function, and of form;Then wandering through the brightnessOf his mind, probing for a place,Between the people and the land,He conjured this uncommon space,Shaping it with sculpted beams To vault the weighty Scottish sky,And channel its inclining lightAcross repeating echoes,Across the granite and the oak,Across the concrete and the steel,Each surface holding his attention,Disturbing his sleep,Until his wakened dreams took shape,Beyond confinement, escaping The formality of dullness,The chains of common sense,To look in upon our land,To see what we cannot,Telling our story;For this is more than just a building,It is a poem for a nation,Beyond the finite grasp of humankind,Abstracting the geometry of thought,It challenges us to thinkFar beyond those who judgeWith an accountant’s eye;For this is a place of liberty,Of wisdom of the mind,So treat it with respect,For we are all,Including him,But passersBy.

Poems in a High Walled Garden She sips her lemon teaWithin a high walled garden,Beneath a perfect square of sky,Broken by erratic clouds, And sliding gulls;While all around,In, peaceful riot, The colours take their chance,As shadows steal,Across the grass,Shrinking, squeezing,Pressing out the flowers from her space;And throughout,Despite the darkness carving out the light,She makes the most of every hue,Of every scent, of every sense,As single lines are drawn up,From deep within a hidden well,And linked together in endless chains,To lift her far beyond this place;She raises sonnets from a page,Holding them gently in her hands,Before releasing them,To fly and soar beyond her sight;These pictures grow and fill the void,Her garden never dies,Never falls to winter,The high walled garden becomes her paradise, A refuge, where her four score years and four Give way to the reality of her mind,Where roams a woman,In the height of summer.

The Holyrood Garden PartyThey wait,In the undiscriminating queue,Each clutching A sovereign's invitation,On a white embossed And weighty card,That has, that very morning, Been ceremoniously removedFrom its honoured place,To call them here,The uncomfortably suited,And the morning suited,The unfascinating fascinators,The wide brims and the pillboxes,The high street combinationsThe designer labels,The Highland dress And Buddhist robes,The clashing of the colours,The tightness of the shoes,The privileged by birth,And those who work the earth,The provost and the cook,The postman and the duke,Each offers up their name,And passes throughThe watchful royal gates,To walk, gratefully, For a single afternoon,Upon forbidden Grass.

STOCKBRIDGE LOVERSLifting over George StreetWith the Castle to your back, See Fife on the horizonSilhouetted all in black;Pass Thistle Street,And Queen Street,Then Gardens left and right,Then wonder at the lawyers’ rowThat stretches out of sight;The cut stone and the palace fronts,The lampposts and the rails,Where each townhouse is a landmark,With their chronicle of tales;But there is no time to linger,The journey is half-done,As the black and shining cobbles Each pulsate against the sun;Turn down Royal Circus,Two halves, a perfect whole,A symmetrical precisionThat animates the soul;Then pass the beckoning curve,Of Royal Circus Lane,With its carriage homes and flagstones,That imprint upon the brain;While the gentle slope will lead you,Inexorably down,Towards the running water, Which boundaries the town;To stand above the river,Which stretches to the seaAnd build a recollectionThat you will foreverSee.

A City’s Crown This Queen of citiesWears a jewel encrusted crown;While others reach towards the skyAnd raise a multitude of hands To claim attention and respect,Elbowing their neighbours,Shouting their names,The Gherkins and the Shards,With mirrored glass, And ever-changing shapes;This Kirk, this High Kirk,Keeps its nerve, unwavering,Confident in itself,No need to shout Above the crowd,Precisely set upon the Monumental Tower,Its floating arches,Welcoming the light,See the morning garnets flash,The amethysts at sunset,The iridescent pearling lightOf flat Edinburgh afternoons;Resolute, it holds its place,Self-assured and grounded;A People’s Crown,After all.

Edinburgh’s Monumental Night Out Every year, on winter’s shortest day, in dead of night,Edinburgh's statues stir, readying themselves,For their annual expedition, their annual jamboree,Livingstone, the great explorer, leads the way, Then Wellington, the Iron Duke, descends his horse,Holmes wraps his cape around himself against the cold, thenHume, the giant, climbs stiffly from his plinth,While Fergusson and Burns, arm-in-arm, reunite in reverie,Then the artists and the scientists, Then the kings and dukes and earls,Then the doctors and the dreamers walk,Then churchmen, and the men of law,The men of war, and the men of peace,From all around the city, each man takes his rightful place,Making his way towards the Old Town’s White Hart Inn,To argue, talk and sing and play, for an evening’s resurrection,To join the throbbing throng, in a fleeting reconnection, To pass the foaming ale amongst themselves,All rivalries forgot, in joyful merriment,While Smith, controls the purse, an economist to the end,And Knox sits in his corner, nursing a hidden gin,Yet still the party livens with stories, songs and rhymes,The drams pour as if no thought of closing time,As Burns takes the floor and holds the eye,And then, in the midst of the swagger and the boast,The door opens, and two women, uninvited, enter,The Queen, the Widow of Windsor,And an unnamed black woman and her child,The men – all fifty-three of them,These symbols of excellence,Chastened into silence,Bow their heads,In awkward,Shame.

Balmoral Clock Edinburgh's time machineRuns three minutes fast,Reaching forwardsInto unknown time, andExperiencing a futureBefore we get there,Saving us anxietyBy building a bufferBetween the then,And the now;I alwaysUsed to wonder,If something Happened inThose threeShort minutes,Could we getThat timeAgain?Erasing ourMistakes,As if theyHadn't reallyHappened;Perhaps,We should all wind Our watches forward,And live,Perpetually,In three minutesOf grace.

Flying Scotsman Standing in a rowOutside Waverley Station,Fingers pushed through the wire.Duffel coats and gloves,Socks round ankles.Black,Everything black.Pot-bellied trainsSpitting steamPushing and pullingHissing,Fighting?Fighting against the tide.All come to a standstillAs the Flying ScotsmanFlashes under the bridgeAnd disappears from viewBut not from sight.

The Bank“I promise to payThe bearer on demand”Is signed beneathWith sloping hand,And on this vowWe place our trust,Not because we canBut because we must;For in exchangeOf goods or labour, We treat the strangerAs our neighbour,And on such A promissory bill,We come to judgeThey bear no ill,And so, upon, These good intentions,We build a setOf new conventions,Of loans and transfersAccounts and debts,The system buildsOn gives and gets,So, watch theseNotes of promise grow,To make return, On what they owe,And place your faithIn trusted hands,The rock on whichThis very buildingStands.

Waverley Station Pigeons With echoes ofKing’s Cross,Ladybank,And Cardenden Hanging in the air, Two boys make statues At a pigeon,Which stands its ground, Staring back, Tilting its head;They throw another shape,It tilts again, Before it turns, And claps itself Into the travellers’ vaulted space;A moment of childhood,Departing, without even an Announcement.

The Scott MonumentIAm aGothicRocket, ReadyingFor launch, Fuelled by Imagination,With a singleAstronaut, He Is tired of hisLegend, he is Weary of his Crown, And so We schemedTogether to Escape this Melancholy town,The countdown it Has started, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, And before anyone has Noticed we are reaching for The sun, the tourists run for Cover, their cameras scatterOn the ground, as we gradually Lift off in a cacophony of sound,The young they stare in wonder, as We lift up to the sky, for no one can Believe, that such a monument can fly, With my buttresses as boosters, and mySpire as my cone, we break free from gravity, And soon we are alone, who knows when we'll Return, as we pass beyond the moon, but we haveTasted freedom, and I know it won't be soon, for I Am a Gothic rocket, we are driven by his dreams, as We stretch beyond the stars, which pass in ceaselessStreams, beyond the Milky Way towards the edge of Time, as the man at the controls, selects a boundless line,So if in years ahead, you come upon our empty site, look Up towards the heavens, and imagine never-ending flight.

THE OLD ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL "Vivas Schola Regia"Or so the school song went,"Sicut arx in colle sita"‘Like a citadel placed on a hill’Watching over its city,But empty now,Empty for fifty years,Boys long departed,Old men now;And with each departing soulThe memories are reabsorbed,Into the Athenian walls,The pillars and the place,Until, one day,The last breath slips away,And, in that final moment, If you listen very carefully,You will hear it whisper,"The school is dead”Long live the school,Vivas Schola Regia

RETURN FROM SINGAPOREI took my granny,In her wheelchair,To the Royal Botanic Gardens,She sat in the chair,And I rode behind her,As we careeredAround the paths,Shouting and screaming,Screaming and shouting,Leaving families In our wake,Until we got To the glasshouse,Where the heat and humidity,Triggered an untold tale,Taking her back to 1942,The Beradin Rubber EstatesWith the Japanese at the door,And escaping to Singapore,Where, waiting on the quay,With two precious ticketsFor the last boat home,My grandfatherSaw a solitary friend, and,Without a moment’s thought,Offered her his freedom,And here, in the wet, wet, heat,Of the glasshouse, My granny cast a single tear,And every year,I return to this place,Feeling the sweat Gathering on my back,And I share that moment,With them both,Long gone, but foreverHere.

A Child's HandTake your child by the handAnd hold the future thereKeep them upright if you can Release them if you dare

HINTERLAND Beyond the city’s limits,Beyond our narrow field of view,Beyond the castles and the spires,Beyond the ancient and the new; It dominates the distance,In a place we seldom understand,Yet in the catchment of our minds,Lies our shadowed hinterland; It looms on our horizon,Yet just keeping out of sight,It guides our every step,And every moment of our night; And in that uncharted landscape,There lies our hidden source,Where rise our mighty rivers,That carve their knowing course; And from our phantom roots,That others neither know nor see,Which guide and shape our present,And who we are to be; So catch those transitory glimpses,Of our unrecovered past,Those unoccupied recollections,That never seem to last; Beyond our city’s limits,Beyond our outstretched hand,Beyond our castles and our spires,Lies our forgotten hinterland.

FRIENDSHIP Throughout our lives,True friends emergeIn short supply,Amongst theTemporary travellersWho share our path,In fleeting fellowship,Then disappear from view,Without a backwards glance;For friendship sows a seed,A bond that grows,A tie, that absence cannot break,Becoming something in itself,A cherished object, locked away,That places no conditions on its gift,Nor hastening to judge;For friendship sees our better side,Behind the drawn curtainsOf our public lives,To share in our success,Or take our arm,In moments of self-doubt,Or bear the blows on our behalf,In an unspoken pact,That holds a mirror to ourselves,And asks the question,In which our deepDiscomfort lies:Do we behave,As would our lifetime’sFriend?And asks again:Do we behave,As would our lifetime’sFriend?

Afternoon Tea at The Balmoral HotelElegance,Plays softly on the ear,And easy on the eye,Deceiving usWith a simplicity,That belies the truth;The practised polished hand,The effortless endeavour,Distilled, and then refined,Where less is more;And here,On a wet and windy,Edinburgh afternoon,We escape,To an exotic place,A world of infusions,From Darjeeling,And Nepal,To a landAbove the clouds;The art of ceremony,The easy grace,The dignity of service,The ritual of restraint,The spinning stops,Albeit for an instant,In long-to-beRemembered,Sumptuous,Scottish,Splendour.