OLD POEMS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

All of these poems have been published in the literary magazines mentioned below, sometimes under different names as I was growing as a writer:

Hot Tin Roof, Northwords Now, Poetry Now, New Writing Scotland, Hybrid, Iron, Cutting Teeth, Poetry Scotland, Drey, The Echo Room, First Time

THE WEIGHT OF GHOSTS

My grandmother is
a frail fairytale. I must
trust to memory
wisps of butter-coloured hair.
I should have driven
deep in my mind the loved lines
of her face as well
as the map of my Glasgow,
marked her smile instead
of memorable music.
When she existed
God and religion were an
extension of her
old age pension. Nuns
followed her home. She hassled
priests, and wandered streets
in the middle of the night
wrapped up tight in tweed
searching for a sister, lost
in time. Now my hair
is wound up with sliding ghosts
her combs curl, gouging
Tortoiseshell teeth in my scalp
bone spears through leather.
I float past security
at airports, alive
and dead, unremarkable.
As long as I live
she’ll feel the wind in my hair.

THE BLANKET & THE WIDOW

Wind me around your legs
spill soup and tomato seeds over
my darned patches.
Feed me.

I don’t have time for cold weather
cruises and dressing for dinner and
being polite to lilac blondes
in elegant greys.
Leave me be.

I could make you dream
smell his hands, his morning armpits
hear the movement of his hung-over bowels;
I can resurrect your sex life.
Trust me.

You accuse me of desertion and failure.
I hope you mould into the last box
for Oxfam, never to be chosen.
Leave me be.

Pick me up off this chair, his death bed
I want to live again, I need to breathe.
I could ease life into you.
Save me.

His shadow lies askew in your folds.
Leave me be.

BROTHER-IN-LAW

A jet skims my head, sprays my hair up
into an oval photograph of her
wedding, the veil lying in the pale sky
above her head. My belly is flat now
all evidence of him scooped out in sleep.
I won’t return. God would scream blue murder
if I crossed the threshold of that country.
I’ll trail their marriage by paper, picture
his face saying, ‘Tell her hello from me.’
She saved cigarette money to pay for
her catholic wedding, she thought it went
to the dogs. He threw himself at her tidy
feet and begged forgiveness. I listened from
the kitchen to the voice that had slithered
its way up the crevice of my stiff legs.

MYOPIA

Brim full of coffee on a fat Saturday
morning, flies skirting the ceiling
I think of all the men I’ve ever had.
The cod n chips, Neirsteiner, cigarettes –
every one left wind in my hair.
My eyes have seen the shady bars
the pale misty men with cyclorama minds
and seductive cocktails.

I keep a map of the barely-pink world
on my wall. This planet, temporary
as a parking lot, just water,
bouncing on an electric stove.
A tongue slips and slides through my mind
runs over a scar here a mole there,
someone is sucking the sweet skin
of my inner thigh. My belly aches.

Fifty-one, is a lumberjack in great boots
stomping through the new snow
on Mossop’s field, his breath bursting
up at me, mine clouding the window.

GRANNY’S CORSET

It smelled of caked talc and bicycle tyres,
small rivers bled into the seams.
When I entered the room I set my feet
in old steps – I never met the fireplace.

Most dragons belch fire; old Sarah screamed
nicotine from her nose, breathed-in dust
from screwed-up paper bags. She sparkled
her eyes with a stained handkerchief.

Fat, pink-boned rubber, laid an oblong
on her bed but she was round! She boomed
around the house in huge Paisley wraparounds,
wisps of silver hair trailed behind her.

I wondered how the magic worked,
thought about slipping beneath the great bed
to spy on mounds of Granny, girdled into place.
I’d listen for the pad of her tartan feet.

Fe Fi Fo Fum, I smell the flesh of a young un!
Her voice was sharp as old snow, fat arms, smooth
in nylon, protruded from her ears. I’d lift dirty dishes
from the bedside and brush past pink flannel to safety.

THE REMOVAL OF ELSIE

Newcastle’s town moor is a barren place
naked of exhibitions and fairs.
Elsie’s feet hover and bump.
Feet that swished over lawn carpets –
in her mind, lines of washing
still fly on Glasgow Green
young men tumble the rings, swing
vested-torsos over bars and wooden horses.
Feet that recall the cold terror of midnight
lino in a house of friendly creaks.

She had stood by Henry’s bed, devouring
the space he’d left, her breath rasping.
It bounced on the heaped dirt of the grave
echoing in her throat as she fell headlong
into her own shadow.

Sing-song Geordie voices kick footballs
and birl mountain bikes up and up the back lane.
Elsie watches hard English water climb
the sides of her daughter’s avocado bath.
Her long breasts float on the Radox surface
nipples slightly indented.
She wonders if they will disappear inside
like an old man’s penis.

THE SEA-WIFE

When I was a girl
my mother sang raucous words
at the solid door.
Now her old dark dress, skirt hard
like carved wood keeps me
from the front street and women
mute as fish, leaning
on the wind, omen-watching.
The tangled stink of
cabbage and broth drift with me
up the ashen path.
My nose catches the thick stench
of Uncle Jack’s bed –
wine and bone-yard slept into
thin mattress. He meets
women in doorways and their
backyard perfume seeps
into my mind. Mother says
not to drown voices
not to cook. St Mary’s
bells jangle across the roof.
I’m drenched, inside out
delivered again from black.

These are very early poems, published at least 20yrs ago:

LOGIC

He believes in Superman
but not in Santa Claus
or the tooth fairy;
he heard Metropolis
mentioned on the TV news.

He found some coal,
said he was going to sell it
to the coal miners.
‘It’s no use,’ I said
‘Throw it away.’
He decided to wash it
to see if there were
diamonds in it.

He believes
that he has a father
and that he goes to work
in a helicopter,
but not that his nana
was my mother, that
I was in that belly.

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE

A laughing policeman prowls untidy rooms
It’s ten o’clock on a holiday morning
Another hovers in four doorways
Just a leap away from a call
Suddenly I have no rights
I have spawned a teenager.
They tower over me
I feel very small
And ashamed.
I follow the path of his eyes
He folds his shoulders
Like a lightweight bike in the hallway.
They’re touching my things
Like burglars
Rapists.
Six size nines hover
But miss the roller skate on the stair.

INDECENT EXPOSURE

Dear Yellow Baseball Boots
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for the dreadlock laces
The black slimy depths
The foreign bodies
The dog shit
The slave labour
For giving you to him.

EGG SPONGE

It didn’t scream
not even at the shock
of separation

I felt as if I’d made it
to an unexpected public toilet
just in time.

Seven pounds
the wash-n-weigh woman
called across.

They tucked the severed piece
of me
into my left arm,

it was the most perfect cake
I’d ever baked.