Reckoning
Im Memory of Douglas Kilpatrick
To know some of the ways of waves and air
you built a boat and learned to sail, steer, tack
against, aslant and with whatever wind
blew across the lochs of Galloway.
Your hesitations when we met to talk –
I see it now – were natural time-lapses.
You were reckoning from first principles
and wondering how long the game would last.
To make sound sense of melody and rhythm
and to be versed in music’s wordlessness
and smell absinthe on Django Reinhardt’s breath
you made a guitar and taught yourself the chords.
You left it late but you made time to learn
the liberating discipline of paint.
Your hills and shorelines make a masterly
all-weather map of shadowland and light.
Climbing a hill, you didn’t need to reach
the summit to make out the lie of the land.
You’d sometimes stop, and sit, and smoke. And when
you closed your eyes you sank into the hill.
Tracy’s on suicide watch
Tracy’s on suicide watch in Cornton Vale.
She stole a pair of shoes, her second offence.
Money-laundering protection racketeers
in banks and finance establishments,
fraudsters in conglomerates,
oligarchs in energy cartels
have chums in Westminster.
‘Pneumonia’ and ‘Cardiac Arrest’
on the certificates
could mean hunger and hypothermia.
‘Cash for honours? What’s the going rate?
It’s politic to have a lord onboard.’
Tracy’s children were taken into care.
They might be safer sleeping on the street.
Davy, Mick and Jack – these three wee men
were honourable commoners.
Now they’re arsed in scarlet, peers of the realm.
