East Highland Gothic

"All flesh is grass."

The Rotten Teeth of the Plough

Worrying the earth, tearing at the terre, New hope for the harvest born of pain As punitive steel bites the soft crust, Stripping away the living green, Fallow no longer.

A Saw-Doctor's Diary

Easter Monday: My duty, to save a soldier from death By bringing him near it. My friend, the sharp singing steel Lately born of a Sheffield mill No darker or satanic than anywhere else,

A Time to Reap

Season of leafmould, sudden rainfall, Mushrooms growing against the trees, Summer riches reduced to golden rags, This burning-bonfire time is the best.

An Teallach: "the Anvil"

Focus of our lifeline, the mouth of heritage, Winds blustering past its one great height Cannot put the lie to its monstrous head, The crowning glory past the Five Sisters.

Barn-Dance

The harvest cleared from fruitful furrows, Workers gather, Celebrating their accomplishment, their release. Many hands toiled to see this day, Now clapping,

Barrows

Cutting through, so deep down brown, Gouging holes like eyes in the earth’s face, Searching for secrets below. The haunted hush of the burial ground Breaks upon the perpetrators,

Bass Rock

Forth in the Firth As a rotten tooth Tormented in the storm: Remembrance of its tears within Soaring beyond ornithology. Walled prison silent in foam Sneering at solidarity of prisoners,

Captain John Reid and The Mermaid

A local myth from the Highland town of Cromarty. John Reid, at least, was a real person...

Captain MacLeod's Widow, and Her Chair

Once commanding the deck of the cabin, It sits proudly in her front room. Full west, steering round the point of the bay, A sea widow sits in remembrance Far beyond the eleventh hour.

Change and Decay In All Around I See

Autumn, with its golden wheatfields, Streets full of dead leaves and whorled chestnuts, Sunshine straining to pierce the mists, Is the most lichen-like of the four seasons.

Come Change a Ring

Links, foreshadowed in the churchyard, Headstone material ancient and strong. How intimately the village gathers, So slight a community, to catch the fire,

Corn Circles

Harvest brings the dark season, The wicked pumpkin hour before the dawn. Unearthly forces walk among the crops, Bestowing blessings ethereal and strange.

Cromarty's Gaelic Chapel

Built for the influx of workers, Heeding the hammersmith call, The hard grind of the Industrial Revolution. Beneath this roof the Highlanders sang To the giving out of the line

Dandelion

Bright yellow flower to be found By the foot of the mourning stone: Almost an affront to be that colour, As a clown at a funeral, Hamlet’s gravedigger in jest.

Plague-House

The cross on the door says it all. Quarantined within her quarters, A lady-in-waiting to Judge Death. These are the dying rooms, no doctor comes

The Guardian goes Awry

Standing ragged against the rain, Only a torn jacket to scare the crows, Hunched in darkness onto the pole, Fixing him to his lonely spot. Row upon row, field upon field of crops,

The Day The Ravens Left the Tower

Caught in a flap, whistling down the wind, Winging their way back to the tower Ruined and crumbling by the westering fields. Built on a whim by Victorian industry,

The Wintering Sky

Horizon bruises into black and blue, Battered by the turning of the seasons, The harsh patterns of the coming solstice. A time of sacrifice, of old things dying,

Millwater

Gently festering by the fir-green, Soft-rotten spokes drifting in the stream, still Driving the wheel for a long-dead master, Its industrious revolutions come full circle.

Southern Alberta in the Fall

The sun’s blessing-rays spread across the fields, Melting the tenderfoot snowflakes of the morn Canola, wheat, corn, sugarbeet, all the season’s yields,

Pit Pony

The working lad retired from service, He peers at the rain with fading sight Blinkered for so long by his industry, No longer able to see fine mist falling.

Sutherland

A contrast between a place I went to on holiday while growing up, and the legacy of its creation by the mass evictions of the Highland Clearances in the early 19th century.

October Rhapsody

The whole of September was One delicious prologue Before that special day came. Waking up, I felt renewed. My birthday always fell In the traditional harvest holiday:

Funeral In Ardmore

The minister in black stares at gashed ground, This hole opening into eternity. Dan the crofter’s days are finished, Each one numbered in his Maker’s book.

Nihilism and Feathers

First crow to the kill dips his beak in gruesome ink, Red staining his glossy black plumage. Looking furtively for unwanted brothers, Those as bleak in outlook as he.

The Life and Times of a Halberd

Cut from the oak, in dying it lives again. Swishing harvest fields austerely as a judge, Beheading the still and silent grain, The axe come to call on Anne Boleyn.

Stack, Foinaven, Arkle

Stack, footstool of Thor’s voice, Tremble the earth before the sky’s blood So tender to melt the earth, Foisted and fostering, Awaiting grace on the fall of summer,
Cherry

Maypole

Centre of the village, focus of historic fears, Children dance to the old songs, dark rhythms in their blood Unconsciously following the final rite in innocent passage,
Cherry

Girders

Skeletal children born of industrial flame, Called into being to serve the outgoing ships, Before the Navy came to service the Firth. The frightening rush of Dreadnaughts
Cherry

Netherfields

Four sails of the seas To navigate a dry-dock vessel, Square and stationary To turn the air to Dutch advantage. But at last the dyke has burst: derelict Stands the house of industry;

Walking With The Sunset

Blood of the brilliant day foregone Spilt in wet widening shadow, The mark of barbed wire fences growing long Scratching the surface of dung-filled meadows.

South Sutor

A sleeping giant, the headland rests Heavy on its side, water washing its head. Over the firth is its still brother, North Sutor, alike in dignity and history.

Saturday Evening, Aberdeen Beach

Lighthouse winks on the headland, Promising a haven for weary vessels. A boat with a beacon sails the tide, Out for herring, in the salt and smack of spray.

Storm Lantern

The widow wakes, fearful for her son, Striking the light that gutters by night, He herring-bound out on the ocean. Rain rides the croft as its master,
Cherry

The Becoming of the Bell

The Amatola’s loss was Cromarty’s gain. The belle of Spanish shipbuilding beached, Grievously wounded in her side; Unable to resist the fierce allure of the rocks,

Moonfleet

Splintered remains of a brandy barrel cracked across, Witness to the descent of mariners Fallen in the bloodied brine. Excisemen gone mad with brandy and corruption.

Little Vennel

Short lane, leading Shorewards to the sea, The grinding breakers of the Firth, The world the town touches, Source of timbered incoming heaving to.

Where Stern Follows Prow

By the church, fragments of psalms Catch the air, too late to save Remains of the humble fishing boat. Upturned as the boats of Boanerges, Sons of thunder to calm the water,

What An Island Knows

Low tide murmurs as a bass voice receding, Revealing the survivors in its wake, A broken box of fish from the harbour mouth, Seaweed limp and passive on the rocks,

Salt Fields

Yellow-burning haymakers Stretch to the sea with lazy fingers, Combine harvesters chugging, The first day of autumn Burning the paint on their engines,

Lighthouse

Warning to the way of seafarers Not to tread in the style of the rocks, Wisdom shining from its headland To light the path of the righteous, The ungodly, the stained and the callous

Isle of May

Beneath the brightness of the Stevensons’ burning, Cormorants come to light on the igneous rock. Skuas dive by nesting razorbeaks, Puffin eggs tumble from the cleft cliff.

Nets and Neuks

Coarse stitching among the coves created, Reef-knots rising in serried rows, Stout resistance To the wiles of the hurricane. Family to family, son to son Tight-knit branches of the same rock,

St Monans Cave, Fife

Communion on the threshold, A service stilled by the sound, The rising of the waters. People wait to sing out by the stone, Reiterated response to the peace within,

Old Man of Hoy

Skeletal in outline with walking stick, Old before the Vikings put to sea To pillage the coast from coastline; Stark witness to robbery and fire, That hollow victory of the solid masts,

The Skull of Eriskay

Smiling from the air, these jaws of rocks unite In chomp and champ of spray, to consume them all. Saliva washing them in its salty way, Eye sockets glimpsed gauntly from the air,

The Wreckers

Dark deliverers from safety, they stand Shining as angels of light into the deep Anti-clockwise, taking ships away, Fog masking the sturdy towers of the true light.

Pitch and Tar To Soil His Hands

Dipped in the ways of the sea, Coil of rope tensed like a snake To pounce on the tie-up at the harbour. Dark blue the dragons and sharp anchors Weighing heavy on long-boned sailors’ arms.
Cherry

White Horses

The sea is quick with the surging, Impatient hooves on the loaded waves Around the headland, herald of its coming, The stamping of the great green-gold rush

Weaver's Point

Deadbeat, the captain stands upon the deck, Rain slicing at his greatcoat. His face forlorn of future tidings of hope, Red hands grasp the helm without feeling.

Sea-Children

Tied to the ocean from birth, Reef knots supplant the umbilical cords Of the sea-children. Playing around the harbour Boats painted in preparation For the sea-children.
Cherry

We Need A New Driver

Past smoke-stained cottages The dark engines pours ash of vitriol Over newly-baptised heads of babies peering From prams by the sweet shop’s windows, Clouding the sky a paler shade of grey.

November's Tavern

Fire flickers out from the hearth, To warm the back of the stranger, Hunted close by the law-hounds, Smelling the smoke of cured ham hanging, Lantern swaying from the roof.

Winter Arches

Based particularly on the Perth railway station.

The Stones

Shadow-walkers of the equinox, Charting the rise and fall of the seasons, They are a law unto themselves. Maintaining dark and tribal traditions. Mistletoe and magic preserve their ways:

The Utmost Shadow

People wait in fear, in awe, Of the cloud of darkness coming To swallow our sun whole, Glutted as a heavy snake feeding From the bone and sinew of a victim, Thoroughly evil in its digestion.

Equinox

The widening wedge between dark and day Equalises in September, A time of druidical feasts and memories. Summer’s sunlight lingers amid the first winter frost.

Police Public Call Box

Unyielding as the Tollbooth, Blue and firm as the saltire, A thick voice of law and order Muffled in the broad Georgian streets. Solid by the siren of the last war,