Three cheers for
our under-valued
public sector
The Cafe 2
James Robertson
and Tom Morton
The day I left
Oz Blackstone’s wife
dead on the kitchen floor
John Cameron
Cruise ship captains
We were told to forget
our cares at the door.
I didn’t forget mine
The Cafe 3
Cybernats
What on earth has
happened to
my dongle?
Islay McLeod
Lust in Balloch
Also for Kay
Photographs by
Islay McLeod
Today’s banner
Winter sunset over
the Clyde
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Requiem for
my wife,
Kay Carmichael
David Donnison
The writer, broadcaster, educator, social worker and reformer Kay Carmichael died on 26 December 2009. ‘I felt a need,’ said her husband David Donnison, ‘to put down words to help me find a way through a veil of tears. Although I had not published poems before and never intended these to be published I instinctively resorted to poetic forms to convey the pain and passion, and to seek the sharper edge to thought that poetry makes possible’. David wrote 22 poems which are collected in the volume, ‘Requiem’, published privately. We have selected four.
As Death Impends
As death impends self-centred I become,
battening down the hatches
as the roar of loss approaches.
Grief seeps deep through my bones;
the busy crowd irrelevant –
citizens of a distant, half-heard world.
Time disintegrates. This tea and toast,
so carefully carried, fills all eternity.
Next week? Next month…? Who cares?
30 November 2009
Alone
Her slippers peep from under the bed.
30 January 2010
Scattering Your Ashes
I come to this rock
where you would sit
to say goodbye
to your life and mine.
I come to pray –
not for you but to you –
seeking a share
in your lonely gallantry.
Gazing here together
to the Atlantic horizon,
‘There is no path’ you said.
‘We make the path by walking.’
Now I must walk,
travelling light,
till our dust mingles
in these flowing tides.
22 February 2010
Postscript
Thought you wrote some poems?
You were wrong.
Powered by pain,
half scream, half song,
they kept your head to wind,
drove you through the storm.
19 June 2010
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