Wednesday 13 October 2021

Earth Lines, published October, 2021 is a so far unique volume of geopoetry and geopoetics, and includes essays as well as poems - one of which is In Conversation with Tinto Hill https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/publications/geological-excursion-guides/

Sunday 4 October 2020

In Conversation with Tinto Hill ---on Youtube, with other geopoets

Here is the link to the very long Geopoetry 2020 YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzs5YMhJiAk&t=13s where I read my poem In Conversation with Tinto Hill [about I hour, 40 minutes in] and there are numerous gems from a great range of folk before and after that

https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/publications/geological-excursion-guides/ Earth Lines has been published, October 2021, and is a fine collection of both geopoetry and geopoetics

Friday 29 May 2020

Loch Ness Monster [Edwin Morgan] - read by me in Dunedin


Song of the Loch Ness monster - YouTube

                The Gift



He came in by chance
but how do I know that?
After all, I carry on not taking
the road not taken,
whereas when he puts one foot
glidingly after the other
then sits on haunches,
stares with silent seduction,
walks till he meets the rug,
snouts the tassle into a bundle,
then lies with chin resting
in that Zen pose,
who is to say how he chose.

Now he is always there.
Never fretful, often hungry,
lavish in comfort,
mean in moving,
an expert in nudging
and wordless communicator
who lives
in the realm of the senses.
We are the ones who feed and upkeep
yet he gives the most
and is mostly asleep.




GP 28/05/20

Thursday 2 April 2020

http://sceptical.scot/2020/03/address-to-a-coronavirus/

Address to a Covid - published in Sceptical Scot,  April 2020

A plea for troubled times

Monday 28 November 2016

New River in the City

By the reservoir there is a four and a half minute stretch of time
when no trains go past.
Not that the cormorant atop his post minds the trains.
But the heron seems to know, as he stalks on to a tuft
peering at the water.
Is it my imagination or do the terns pirouette much higher now?
Cygnets in unlikely repose
and parents a distance away still finely attuned.
Over by the empty pond nothing seems to happen.
There’s a crane hanging loose -
one of the metal variety.

I’m sure I hear a nuthatch, or maybe two,
but it’s more of a song than a call.
For now no one is taking fright
and a grebe dives down
for almost a minute out of sight.
Behind me a whole parliament of crows
has not one speaker as they trace the grass,
with waddles and hops.
A woman comes by with a pug off the lead,
nose to the ground but with haltering stride -
seen better days, now just gets by.
Some branches of gorse are flowering.
When are they not?
Any time of year it seems.
Gorse does not wait.

I move my arm and the heron elongates his neck,
looks straight this way,
stark, still. He tolerates me.
Nothing continues to happen.

Riff with Tambourine

Inspired doctorates by the score,
annoyed purists of folklore,
sang lyrics through his nose,
decried the powerful who pose,
knew how to make a band
in a manner far from planned.
You might say he strode a world stage
on behalf of youthful rage,
ducked a Readers Digest,
was the star of many a rockfest,
took holding power to task
in a way straight guys couldn’t ask,
and the academics how they swooned
as their shibboleths he lampooned.

Many years later at The Fleadh
my son was there with his old dad.
‘He can’t even sing’, he said.
‘Plays a good mouth organ’, I replied.
‘One of these days you’ll appreciate the man –
it takes a long time to become a real fan.
It did for me’.
For I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now’.