The Continuing Story

The Continuing Story by Calum McCallion.

After his Rimbaudesque disappearance in the early 2000s, Gary returned to Aberdeen in 2026.

His ‘disappearance’ had been a period of transition, hadn't been to Abyssinia like Rimbaud, Gary was  just getting away from all the crap that was going on in his life at the time, drink, drugs, separation, and divorce from his wife.

He found ‘the ‘Deen, as he called it, to be a vastly different place, things had changed in a big way since the Covid pandemic, and even more as friends shifted and drifted like lines in poetry.

Gary still wrote poetry, he had stayed connected with me by post when he was abroad, only by letter, and sporadically, very sporadically.

He was still inspired by the city of his birth, Aberdeen, the Granite City, with all its historical landmarks, St Nicholas Kirk, the Mither Kirk, all the churches, and municipal buildings, designed by revered architects of note.

He was inspired by psychogeography, the poetry of place, the recollection of things which took place in places- that sort of thing, if you get the idea.

His favourite author was Iain Sinclair, whose command of the language was awe inspiring, whether he was writing poetry, fiction, or his travelogue books of his walks across London. Gary found that he would look up words in the dictionary when reading Sinclair’s work, and write them and their meaning on Post-it notes, which he would then sellotape to one of the doors in his house. It looked weird, and was, but he didn’t care, he was a writer, that was, in his opinion, part and parcel of his craft.

Sinclair’s work was an influence on Gary’s Aberdeen based poetry, and I am currently working on an article on it for a future publication of my own.

Anyway, I would see Gary every now and then for a coffee and a chat. He had given up the Guinness and Jack Daniels’ chaser combination of old, as he had been teetotal for almost five years. His caffeinated chatting was always full to the brim with references to poets, authors, and music he was currently into, and who were influencing his writing at that time.

He would often attend open mic nights in the city, where nobody really knew him, and read his ‘Aberdeen’ poems, with a Beat Generation style poem chucked in for good measure. He was the ‘old, bearded guy’, at these gigs, and seemed to fit in with the variety of folk who attended them.

He still had the ambition to publish one further chapbook, he was only sixty-two but often spoke as if he were twenty years older, thinking of his mortality on a regular basis.

A few of his school friends had passed on in recent years, so his way of thinking tended to go in this direction.

Being the older friend, and I guess an influence on him, I have known him since we worked together years ago. I will assist him with getting this objective done, he is such a talented poet and deserves this at least. I am now seventy-four and have morphed over the years into the folksinger/poet type guy I always wanted to be, we could collaborate, I’ll ask him, the next time I see him.

He still eschews the use of the Internet, preferring to stay anonymous, especially when photographs are mentioned on the open  mic nights. He cringes at the thought of being posted on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, You Tube, and when these names are invoked, like a corporate IT litany for these chaotic times.

His previous publications, unbeknown to him, sell for £100 or more, on Amazon, E-Bay, and such online sales outlets.

But he still craves anonymity, a face in the crowd, not talking too loudly.

Anyway, I’ve heard that his poetry goes down well at the open mics that he attends, and that he attends them sober, which can only be a good thing!

( This is a companion piece to ' Calum At The Festival', and 'We are Only Riders' for those who have read them- markp)