Dear Reader.

A family member has been ill
this has left me even more incapable
of getting my head around computers and blogging.

Thank you all for reading and for your generous and kind comments.

Hope.

May you in whatever circumstance you find yourself
find also a sense of hope in the Christmas message.
Remember also that this baby grew up to be a man
who was accused, condemned and executed
by the religious establishment of his day.
So don't excuse or flatter yourself
for throwing this baby out with the bath water
because of the religious establishment of this day.

Thank You For America.

Thank you.

Thank you for America not being the World
and the World not being America

Thank you for human leadership not being greater
than the mind of God or the conscience of man

Thank you for the Media not being the whole story

Thank you for the 99 per cent of people
who choose peace and community

Thank you for kindness everywhere and anywhere

Thank you for Family
for Grandfathers and Grandmothers for Fathers and Mothers
for Brothers and Sisters for Nephews and Nieces
for Uncles and Aunties and Cousins

Thank you that you are the Father of us all.

The Purpose of Torture.

Birlinn: Ship of Burden.

Govan GalGael Birlinn.


Don't wait for a Ship that will never come in
Build your own Ship and become it's Captain.


A carving of a Bìrlinn from a 16th century tombstone in MacDufie's Chapel, Oronsay.

Remembrance.

The ruthless greed of the Bosses of big business

The despotic ambition of Politicians

The slaughter of the innocents for the control of the World's resources

Good family men conscripted to kill Good family men

Evil called Good Deception called Transparency Lies called Truth

The powerlessness of ordinary men and women

God will remember them.

The Millbank Mandate.

There have been violent scenes as tens of thousands of people protested against plans to treble tuition fees and cut university funding in England.

Demonstrators stormed a building in Westminster housing the Conservative Party headquarters, smashed windows and got on to the roof.

Outside, a crowd of thousands surged as placards and banners were set on fire and missiles were thrown. (from the news)

Why was there so few police positioned outside the Tory HQ?

1. Those in command of the police operation were incompetent?

2. The powers that be have now established a mandate for heavy handed tactics
in dealing with expected future protests engendered by their policies?

11 O'clock.

Maelstrom.

Dada.

When I was 20 I thought that 50
was a thousand years away
and now I'm 50 I think that 60 and 70
are tomorrow and the next day
and now I'm 50 (no matter what you say)
I know that 20 is a thousand years away

If I was 20 again
I would Get out Get out Get out
and you should do the same
Relatives are a wonderful childhood accompaniment
and in adulthood they are also good
but on a different continent

Don't become the Hobby horse
from your Father's carpentry box
ridden into the ground for the rest of your life

Don't become the wedding dress
from your Mother's pattern box
another Wedding another Bride another Mother

Don't become the chattel
of a Priest or a Mullah
When all they are teaching is
Be me Be me Be me
Grasp your God given right to
Be you Be you Be you

Break the mould
shatter it beyond repair
leave no ambiguous pieces of doubt
and Get out Get out Get out.

New Group.

I was listening to the Radio one day and the DJ said - "Here is a song by a new group called The Beatles" and he played this song.

Impassioned impatience.

Moriarty.

You are a Bastard
and I've decided to kill you
I've thought of many different ways
and from these I've chosen - Time
I'm going to kill you with time
and then you will be dead
as dead as Marlene Dietrich.

Impassioned impatience
is not my style, I'm a patient man
patient enough to kill you with time
and get off scot-free.
I can wait, I can while away the hours
sit out the days endure the years
until the last day, last hour, last second.

Until your time and my time
until the Reichenbach Falls
and there will be an end
an end to this life lived in this world
an end to all this life's reasons
for you being a Bastard
and for me killing you.

Beloved.

Beloved.

It's strange after all these years
to find myself thinking about you
It began about a month before I met you
in the Hotel lounge after the funeral

We stood in the middle of the room
making polite small talk
and the whole world receding around us

It was in your eyes
it was written all over your face
the spark the chemistry the attraction
whatever it is named
or indefinable without a name
that makes a man and a woman
want each other

It was you all along
it was you I've been drifting from
you were the one
My Dearly Beloved
and I never knew until this moment of clarity
thirty seconds watching thirty years
go down the Swanee

If I could go back
I would not walk across that bridge
I would not leave you standing there
so distraught and so alone
But I can't go back
and we can't go forward
there is nothing for us
there can be nothing between us
we met too soon and now too late
it's all perfectly fucked up

Only this mutual comprehension
of what could have been
can perhaps be counted as something
And all I'm left feeling
is that I'm walking
away from you again.

Appointment.

At the Doctor's

I'm afraid you have
a very difficult to pronounce illness
complicated by the fact
it is also very difficult to spell.
Because of this all I can do
is prescribe a medication
which is equally
difficult to pronounce and spell.
This may or may not
alleviate your symptoms.
We'll see how it goes.
I appreciate your confidence in my ability
to pronounce and spell these unfamiliar words.
And for your convenience
Medical knowledge of your condition
has been abbreviated to N.I.L.
and the name of your medication
has been abbreviated to C.R.A.P.

Osbourne.

Paranoid lyrics.

Finished with my woman
cause she couldn't help me with my mind
People think I'm insane
because I am frowning all the time

All day long I think of things
but nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind
if I don't find something to pacify

Can you help me, occupy my brain?
I need someone to show me
the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness,
I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh
and you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel
and love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words
telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could but it's too late.

BBC News.

Yesterday on the News.

A BBC reporter interviewed four students seated outside a bistro in Sheffield Hallam Nick Clegg's constituency. They were all asked the same question - What was their opinion of the Coalition austerity measures. The four of them in turn agreed that something had to be done to pay back the deficit and that they were in agreement with the public spending cutbacks.
I found this reassured me that these cutbacks are in fact a good thing.

Today on the News.

A BBC News story regarding Dr David Kelly has reported that someone found blood in the wood where he died. This is evidence that he did take his own life.
This report coupled with two short videos of Dr Kelly looking unhappy have convinced me that this must be the case.

So I commend the BBC for the integrity their impartial investigative journalism.

The Maze.

The Maze.

Too many variables to be very sure
Too many Doctors to find a cure

Too many Politicians mouthin' sound bites
Too many human beings denied human rights

Too many Millionaires applauding austerity
cheering the deepening entrenchment of poverty

Too many sociologists narrowing the gap
trammel through the maze into the mouse trap

Too many Priests going through the motions
reciting liturgical unfelt devotions

Too many Poets who have never been read
lost like pearls from a broken thread

Too many blind to worth - wanting to be rich
Masters of Life in designer kitsch

Too many deaf standing on the shore
there's a hurricane coming and they can't hear the roar

Too many refugees to calculate the cost
country and home and dignity lost

Too many smug regarding their future
counting the cost of a food voucher

Too many young men eager to be brave
learning to fight while learning to shave

Too many being taught in segregation
denied an interactive rounded education

Too many claiming the authority of God
twisting youthful ideals into innocent blood

Too many children cut down while they play
Too many hearts broken like clay

Too many fragments of shattered dreams
caught in the vortex of a Mother's screams

Too many standing in numbed disbelief
surveying the altered landscape of grief

Too many stumbling attempting to regain
a foothold in unfamiliar terrain

Too many walking the desolation
of their social isolation

Too many waiting for things to get better
until it finally doesn't matter

Too many on the outside looking in
on Churches barbed by subtle sin.

W. H.

I wrote this ages ago, this is what I remember of it.
I wrote it after reading a particularly flowery poem of Auden that had nothing to say, just an exercise in words that nobody speaks.

Bad poem on a Bad poem.

I'll never be aw dun wae Auden
I admit it's probably my fault
this image of walking through a desert
carrying a bottle of salt

I've accosted you in sobriety
I've even plied you with vino
at the last you have helped me with Shakespeare
because you make him read like the Beano

My dictionary is dog-eared
teasing out revised brocade
only to find the woven gold
serves to disguise the nothing said

Old Oxonian verbiage
with an empty page to fill
composed of so many darlings
you could not bring yourself to kill

I hold you in my work worn hands
and want to know you very much
but find I am a common man
and you don't have the common touch.

This poem by Auden has more to say.

NIGHT MAIL
by W H Auden

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Thro' sparse counties she rampages,
Her driver's eye upon the gauges.
Panting up past lonely farms
Fed by the fireman's restless arms.
Striding forward along the rails
Thro' southern uplands with northern mails.

Winding up the valley to the watershed,
Thro' the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheepdogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

One Flew Over.

Bad Egg.

I don't want to hate you
it would be too easy
and if it wasn't you
it would be someone else

There is always someone
a Cuckoo of hatred
laying it's egg
in someone else's heart

Hatching and thriving
demanding and greedy
evicting nobler emotions
from their birthplace

I don't want to hate you
it would be too easy
and that is why
it's so difficult not to.

Stevie Smith.

Day Trip.

Enjoying the view
from a falling Cable Car
is an indication
of not knowing where you are.

Love your enemies.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.'But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect"
Jesus - Matthew 5.

Leviticus 18:21
'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.

Lead kindly light.

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,--
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene,--one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on:
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish days, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
Will lead me on;
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

John Henry Newman.

Viviane Reding.

Edinburgh U S Consulate Protest.

Something I thought of when watching this protest on the news was that the people protesting have no idea about how to get arrested. All they are doing is confusing the police. What you have to do is try your best to live a quiet life, attend to your own business, care for your family and be a Scottish Traveller - This has always worked for me.

"Precision Air Strike"

2 September 2010.

Afghan election campaign workers 'killed in air strike'

Ten election campaign workers have been killed in an air strike by Nato-led forces in Afghanistan, officials say.

The governor of the northern province of Takhar, Abduljabar Taqwa, told the BBC that two people were also wounded in the attack in the Rostaq district.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the incident, saying that "pro-democracy people should be distinguished from those who fight against democracy".

A Nato spokesman said a "precision air strike" had hit a militant's vehicle.

I find this report distressing. It seems the allied occupying forces in Afghanistan
can choose to kill anyone with impunity.
I also find Hamid Karzai's statement (if he did say this) to be chillingly inane.

Link to this news story.

"Beep Beep"

"Beep Beep"

I hope I don't die stupidly
for no apparent reason at all
by deciding to prune a tree
or crossing the road for a ball

I hope it's not like Luney Tunes
or a Laurel and Hardy flick
falling like Wile E Coyote
or met by a falling brick

I hope I'm not a victim
of some botched act of crime
or cut down by an illness
too ignorant to bide it's time

A man should die in age
with his family around his bed
and they should weep and hug each other
when the Doctor says - "He's dead"

They should bear him up like Joseph
solemnly to his resting place
and remember him joyfully
in a new born baby's face

This doesn't always happen
it isn't always allowed
some are dragged to execution
through the midst of a baying crowd.

Ten ways to die:

1. Illness
2. Accident
3. Medical Incompetence
4. Act of Violence
5. Victim of War
6. State Judicial Execution
7. Suicide
8. Old Age Health Decline
9. Natural Disaster
10. Giving Your Life to Save Someone

Harvest.

Harvest.

Autumn is here
and there is no harvest
The trees have leaves but no fruit
The wheat has ears but no grain
and if you should return
I wouldn't know
how to begin to explain

I would offer you a gift
but of all the things I own
all I have is my sin
all I have that's mine alone

Spare me - I pray
another year or two
if you will extend your hand
I will fill a harvest basket for you

I have laboured in these fields
among this bracken, broom and whin
and a lifetime to understand
all you wanted was my sin.

Moonstruck.

Debbie and Donna.

Debbie and Donna

I saw you at the bus stop
on my way back from the chip shop
You were wearing your
'Don't you want to go out with me dress'

You were going to meet your boyfriend
the one who works in the off licence
the one who left his wife and kids
And she was screaming and kicking your door
at two o'clock in the morning waking up half the street

A chance to stop and chat
mostly about last night's episode of Corry
I actually watch it so that I can chat to you about it

A dog pisses on the bus stop
"Marking it's territory" - you said
A girl is throwing two balls against a wall
making it look like an Olympic sport
"She never misses" - you said

Sitting at my coffee table
I unconsciously begin placing my chips
in little rows and shapes
in a kind of cold chip mathematical equation
I'm trying to figure out
how long it will take the Adonis from the off licence
to go back to his wife and kids
That'll be some rebound
and I fully intend to be there to catch you
to comfort and console you

The phone rings
it's Donna - I bumped into at the chippy
(We used to call her 'Marry Donna' she talked about marriage so much)
She asks me if I have the tv on
Jimmy White has levelled and it's nine frames each
"Thanks Donna" - I tell her
finding the remote under the chip paper
"I didn't know you were all that interested in snooker'
...Okay...see you in about five minutes"

She's on her way round and this place is a mess
It could do with a woman's touch and then again...so could I.

Angel Song

Angel Song

I hear the harmony
of their wings
resonating in the air
like the breeze on my face
I can feel they are there
They are rising in harmonics
turning like a flock of birds
in the choir of their wings
I can hear these words

'The poor man's wealth
is in his heart
collected treasures set aside
a lifetime of feeling and thought
of joys to share and grief to hide

The poor man's wealth
is in his soul
fashioned by a life of care
when there is nowhere to turn
calling out to God from his despair

The poor man's wealth
is in his hope
for heaven's pasture
and a camp to pitch
in the gift of God
who spares the poor
the poverty of dying rich

The poor man's wealth
is in his faith
upon this staff his burdens lean
and walking taps along the way
finding evidence of things not seen

The poor man's wealth
is in his need
though wealth and power
their virtues flaunt
the place where the God is found
is in the sigh of abject want'

Then gradually I became aware
of breathing again
there was less pressure in the air
and the sky just looked like rain
I called out and I listened
but I knew they were gone
so I sat beneath an oak tree
and wrote down their song.

I posted this in March, but you can always sing a song again.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

This is a post I happened upon by Mario Vittone.
There is a 'share' icon I clicked and it appeared here - magic.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Man is good by nature ?

Third verse of - "Why should we idly waste our prime"

Robert Burns -
The Golden Age we'll then revive:
Each man will be a brother;
In harmony we all shall live,
And share the earth together;
In Virtue train'd, enlighten'd Youth
Will love each fellow-creature;
And future years shall prove the truth
That Man is good by nature:
Then let us toast with three times three
The reign of Peace and Libertie!

Solomon -
There is not a righteous man on earth
who does what is right and never sins.
Ecclesiastes 7:20.

Jesus -
"What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean."
Mark 7:20-23.

Paul the Apostle -
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1:28-32.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
Paul - Romans 7:18.

It is better for ideals to die than people.
"The golden age" is a yellow brick road that can lead to an Auschwitz.

Stefin Spelbug.

Very Good.

I read your poem last night
it was very good.
Apart from the incongruous cocktail of metaphors,
the tortured crunching of words in the second stanza
and the indiscernible (or non existent) structure.
Apart from this it was very good.
Did you purposely write - 'Stefin Spelbug?'
Do you have any more or is this your first attempt?

Ps - Ammonium nitrate, which I assume you mean by - 'Aminaume netraite'
would not be generally considered the only cause of holes in latex.

The Express.

The Avonbridge Express

From the Forest of indifference
walled within the briers of distress
rest turns to sleep and sleep to dream
of the Avonbridge Express

The Engineer is in his glory
amid the toil the heat the mess
his heart is in his service
for the Avonbridge Express

Families and their loved ones
emerge from an ephemeral egress
they are gathered for the boarding
of the Avonbridge Express

The Guard surveys the platform
opens his watch with finesse
then announces "All aboard"
the Avonbridge Express

A phone is ringing in the Station
an increasing urgent duress
but this is the departure
of the Avonbridge Express

The Debutante delicately poised
at an angle to impress
gazes from the window
of the Avonbridge Express

The young man on the platform
has three choices to address
aboard beneath or wave farewell
to the Avonbridge Express

Bless me Father for I have sinned
and ashamedly confess
my every thought has ever been
of the Avonbridge Express

To Avonbridge
via Findo Gask
then on to Port Na Fane
Speeds the Avonbridge Express

never to return again
never to return again
never to return again

Forgive.

We see the light reflected
from the moon upon a pond
and reach to touch the circles
from an instinct to respond
and the grace to forgive
within the heart forgiven
reaches out beyond the stars
to touch the light of heaven.

Boy band.

The willow trees

Omagh

A day
can seem like a lifetime
a moment like a year
hopes and dreams
contained and lost
in one exploding tear

Caught
in the freeze frame
moving in slo-mo
another imagined
retrospective scenario

When those loved
more than life
do not survive
the deepest wound
is the hurt
of being alive
To stand beneath
the willow trees
and weep aloud
lost in grief
wander Market street
among the crowd

Caught
in the freeze frame
moving in slo-mo
another imagined
retrospective scenario.

Economy.

Change:

"Hierarchy"

Should read:

"Economy"

Change:

"Safeguards in hierarchical structure"

Should read:

"Fears of continued economic gloom"

Away.

When the seagulls sing.

I didn't know
where you came from
I didn't care
where you had been
no questions
no answers
imagined to be real
interpretations of the past
permitting us to feel

You accosted my life
You deconstructed my mind
You rearranged my heart

The first noticeable change of a spring day
an unheralded rush of light and warmth
throwing open windows and doors
expelling the chill from the air

Filling the emptiness with the joy of living
breaking the silence with the sound of laughter
sharing the magical gift of unconscious forgetfulness.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

But now memories amount to one
The fact that you are gone

Your beautiful body
away from me
Your beautiful body
away from me
Your beautiful body
away from me

It was like when the seagulls sing
it didn't mean a thing
like when the seagulls sing
it didn't mean a thing
when the seagulls sing
it doesn't mean a thing.

When I wrote this poem I was living in a second floor flat in Paisley.
After the last line I was sitting looking at it and I heard this squawking sound.
I looked out of the living room window, three seagulls were flying in a circle and squawking outside the window.

The Beach.

The Beach

We sat in the shade
and drank lemonade
and watched the sun going down
We talked until dawn
of hope and of fear
then walked to the beach
to watch the sunrise
We saw the Earth turn
on it's flight round the sun
and the glimmer of stars from space
We saw the sunrise
turn the sea into wine
and intoxicated
We played on the sand.