My heart like a ragged bird ...

We followed my mum and dad as they walked towards the Meridian Centre - 

My mum pushed her sholley - my dad was keen to buy a pack of four and a bottle - 

We'd got my dad to use his stick - 

It'll make me look like old he'd said - 

I wondered how it would be, to walk with tiny steps, my heart like ragged bird, perched upon my ribs - 

10.00

Monday 20 July 2015

Havant

My mum watches children playing cricket in the park ...

I took my mum to the park this morning -

It was Anne's idea - they're not going to church she said - they'll get restless - 

My dad said he preferred Canon Brown to the new vicar - 

When I went round to see him he told us - Canon Brown always offered me a glass - 

My mum sat in the front passenger seat of the Golf - 

I drove as if she were made of sparrows' bones - 

In the park, we watched children playing cricket -

My mum's eyes shone -

Look at them she said - the little ones - 

We sat under the trees - I held her hand -

Birds sang - 

The bright sun moved across the sky - 

11.30

Sunday 19 July 2015

Havant 

Melrose Abbey, peregrinatio perpetua ...

I stood between broken columns, gazing upwards at the sky - 

A high window framed clouds and heaven - 

I remembered how grace might suddenly be bestowed - 

Swallows flew around the heads of lichened saints - 

Prayer drenched stone cast shadows upon the grass - 

I walked through the cloisters, now a haunt of butterflies -  

Peregrinatio perpetua I thought - each one of us walks towards the east - 

15.00

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Melrose Abbey

Walking through the wynd ...

 

I met up with Penny after leaving my grip in The Old Grocery - 

I walked through the wynd to Dunfermline House - 

I heard voices from opened windows high above my head - 

After two brimmers of Merlot I was a little tipsy - 

On the way, I passed a small theatre - it reminded me of the Magic Theatre in Steppenwolf - 

I looked for a sign saying entrance not for everybody - 

I thought of how I'd worn dark suits,  when I should have chased the moon - 

14.00

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Melrose

The wall of whisky ...

 

The cappuccino I sipped in Rhymers was worthy of a louche cafe bar in Dalston - 

I half expected a youth with an elaborate beard to bring me my almond pastry - 

We had just arrived in Melrose - 

Thoughts of the walk ahead filled our heads - 

We would follow the path taken by monks carrying the saint's sweet smelling bones - 

In front of me was a wall of malt whiskies -  

I remembered drinking Tobermory with Jay and Richard on the slopes of the Red Cuilins -  

Between sips we'd eaten plum cake, baked by Bridget's sister - 

I thought of Ken, telling me his stories of Africa, pouring bumpers of Laphroaig - 

I sat with my moleskine, reading the labels of the bottles - 

Each one, I thought, should celebrate a pilgrimage - each glass should bring back a memory of a hallowed shrine - 

12.00

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Rhymers

Melrose

The bus from Berwick to Melrose ...

I slept well in the Travelodge - I dreamed I put a yellow feather upon my tongue - 

In the morning I put on Look North weather - 

Penny told me she had been kept awake - boys from the pebble dashed houses had gathered outside the 24 hour MacDonalds - 

They were having a party in the car park Penny said - revving their motor bikes - 

I imagined the pale skinny boys, astride their buzzing Suzukis, drinking buckie - 

We walked to the railway station, to wait for the Perryman Bus - 

A father and son were talking like wily chancers about footballers - 

The dad said he's done well - never gets nutmegged - he'll lift the silverware - 

The bus took us north, over the border - we went through Coldstream and Kelso - 

For a while we drove along the valley of the Tweed - the river ran through bright fields - noble fish moved upstream - high walls enclosed ancestral parks - 

The courtly driver stopped the bus outside a rustic public lavatory - excuse me for a moment ladies and gentlemen he said - 

After Newtown St Boswells, a large gingery baby roared and roared - 

His gentle tattooed mother held him in her arms - his father rocked him in his buggy - 

The baby's doing my head in said a thin woman behind us - she had wild hair and a shrill voice - 

The baby carried on roaring - 

I sat listening to the Scottish accents and the short fierce sentences - 

Galashiels, Dalkeith, Musselburgh I murmured, as though I was remembering the words of a spell - 

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Perrymans Bus

Route 67

Berwick to Melrose 

Berwick twilight ...

We looked over the roof tops of the walled town from Meg's Mount - cruel beaked herring gulls nested amongst salt rimed chimney pots - 

A bridge with many arches spanned the shining river - 

Brave girls rowed skiffs upstream, past a whiteness of swans - 

In the shadow of the White Wall, a bare chested boy walked with his pit bull - 

Noble stone houses faced the selkie haunted sea - 

We saw, far off, two castles on the edge of the land - 

Evening sunlight fell into silent wynds - 

The town hall was like a Hawksmoor church - 

I dined on sea bass and samphire - 

The town was emptied of people - 

Narrow stairs led to a gateway in the walls - 

Our long shadows followed us, dark twins moving over pale stone -

20.00

Tuesday 30 June 2015

Berwick upon Tweed