In 2007 Ian was awarded the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship. Part of the award was the chance to stay for a while and write in the beautiful Hotel Chevillon in Grez-sur-Loing in the Forest of Fontainebleau in France. Now an artists' retreat it was formerly a hotel. Stevenson himself spent time there, as did many famous artists and the playwright, Strindberg.

I was lucky enough to be able to join Ian for part of his time there. I wrote the following poem in the Visitors' Book when we were leaving.


Leaving


At the Hotel Chevillon, Manuella, cloth in hand,
cleans the rooms, disturbs the artists’ dreams
rolling lost beneath the beds, swathed by time in softest dust.

On the burnished wooden stairs, fallen thoughts,
delicate as spider webs, float before her sweeping broom
and as she polishes and sprays, the ghosts of those
who once lived here flit restlessly from room to room.

While Manuella does what must be done;
mops up the drops of inspiration, the dregs of desperation
fallen from the artists' pens

wipes from the windowpanes
the breath of those who long to leave

a brushstroke on the sky,
a poem on the petal of a flower,
a pure note echoing in the breeze,
something which says, yes
I was here
I left
I did not leave


Hotel Chevillon, September, 2007

february on flanders moss

in morning sunshine
feathers black as mourning silk
death perches on a leafless tree

behind my back
my shadow stretches
a silent ghost

wraithed in mists, dark firs wait
like forgotten Roman armies
doomed to haunt the edge of time

a scots pine, stunted, stands
its branches gnarled as an ancient’s hands
begging kindness from the rushing clouds

in a flat green field, ditched around with brown, a scarecrow leans,
the next along lies face-down in a muddy shroud
forgotten fallen soldier in a sodden Scottish Somme

a shot rings out, a cloud of herons lift
into a sky of gun-metal grey
forty wings in a flap

late evening sun slants
the moss beneath my feet
emits a human gurgling sound

They shoot poets, don't they? Part two.

As I explained in a previous blog entry, The Herald - who over the years have liked to portray themselves as champions of poetry with their tiny daily poem squeezed in beside the obituaries - were happy to indulge in lax journalism on the appointment of a Makar for Stirling.

Not content with one article spreading malicious misinformation, The Herald has followed up with another piece by Cate Devine stating that the appointment of a Makar is controversial locally as the poet is being paid to promote poetry throughout the area.

Makes you wonder how much work a Herald journalist would do for £500 per year. Who knows, they might even go to the bother of checking their facts.

But more mysterious to me - why all the negative spin from The Herald on the appointment of a Makar? Are they running an anti-poetry agenda?

DiScOmBObUlAtE - Tuesday 10th February 2009 at the CCA

Yay! We're back for 2009. Special guest for Feb is Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap.

Hosted by the ineffable Ian Macpherson, the line-up includes regular favourites Anneliese Mackintosh, Iain Heggie, Alan Bissett and Kirstin Innis. Also reading, Rodge Glass. I might squeeze in a wee Valentine poem myself.

Oh, and Anna and Julian are back with another song following their December success.

So come along to the Theatre at the CCA, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, 7.30 for an 8pm start. Laugh at the writers who've crawled out from behind their desks to meet at DiscOmBoB, where literature and comedy collide.

ps we're building a DisComBob website - more info soon.

THEY SHOOT POETS DON'T THEY?

Well, I'm delighted to say that on Burns' Day I was appointed as the official poet - or Makar - for Stirling. This is essentially an honorary position - something the local Unison spokesman should have taken on board before making his 'slap in the face' comment in yesterday's Herald. It carries an honorarium of £500 per year, and not as the Herald claimed, £1500. It also, I understand, comes from a budget made up from legacies, therefore the money involved can not and could not be used for general council spending. So petty politicking and lax journalism from The Herald notwithstanding, I'm delighted. Particularly as I was nominated by local people and subsequently appointed by a non-political panel.

As I've said before, poetry is important for people. Why else do so many turn to it in times of distress? But poets don't write in a vacuum, and roles such as Makar matter.

Acknowledgment that what we as poets do in recording the times in which we live - as poets for millennia before us have done - is welcome. I truly regret that the belt is tightening on employees at Stirling Council, but that issue should not be confused with the honorary role of the Makar in raising the profile of poetry in the area. The role will also help promote Stirling as a place of culture and literary heritage.

THE SENILE DIMENSION

I am often asked which book my sequence, The Senile Dimension, which won the Scotland on Sunday/Women 2000 Poetry Prize can be found in. It was first published in Meantime, Prize-winning Writing from Scottish Women (Polygon), then appeared in my first collection, Kicking Back. But as Kicking Back is now out of print and copies cost at least £15 on Amazon, I've been promising for a while to put it on this blog.
So here it is at last.
As it charts my experience of my father's illness, I've added some later poems - a kind of 'Part Two'. These poems were first published in Strange Fish, a joint collection with Helen Lamb. Sadly, Strange Fish too is now out of print.



The Senile Dimension

So sorry, dear, to hear
poor dear
about
your father's
senile dimension.



1.
Breathing Space

You are riotously funny
a one-man farce
you clown around
toppling the routine
of all our lives.

First off there is
the dressing of you
vest over shirt
socks over shoes
Surrealist in Senility.

At tea-time you babble
perched on a flip-top bin
(we really flip our lids at that)
you dollop butter in brown tea
shake sugar on white bread
then down it all – seasoned
with our mirth.

You are riotously funny -
laughter gives us breathing space.
All too soon we know we'll face
the final scene
not of one man farce
but family tragedy.


2
Salting the wound

The baby brings out the best in you.
She alone makes contact
in your broken mind.

You cosset cajole cuddle
like any doting grampa.
She giggles, gurgles
while for her you haltingly unmuddle
a few syllables of sense.

The baby brings out the best in you,
brings smiles to your lined face,
rubs salt in the raw wound
where life and death are caught
where only the very young
and the very old
are free to laugh and meet

3
Broken

The Machine is broken.
It does not respond
to normal commands.
It operates
but erratically.

I have phoned.
I have phoned.

The Repair Man cannot call today.

The Machine is definitely broken.
Its memory has rewound.
It jams on replay replay replays
scenes from childhood days.

The Machine is losing power.
Even its basic functions cannot be relied upon.

I watch it constantly.

I am afraid of the Machine.
I think it might be dangerous.
The children should be warned.
Someone should unplug it.
But no-one will.

I have called the Repair Man.
The Repair Man cannot call today.

4.
Dayroom

Minnie sings, sweet as the mina bird
in the jungle of the dayroom.
Her yellowed dot eyes dart from chair to chair –
she fears the apes and tigers hiding there.

Andy claps the bumbling clowns
they stage to take away his gloom:
he loves the crazy unmatched clothes,
the gormless smiles, the pear-drop tears,
the cartoon comic frowns.
He claps claps claps them
when they tumble down
in the circus of the dayroom.

The window rambles on
and on and on
with memories of the War
and the General Strike, and the first TV
and remember wee Aunt Annie
and rides in her flash car
to the captive audience
it reflects upon
in the mystery of the dayroom.

Life goes on and on and on
and makes no sense to you or me
in the hot air of the dayroom.

5
Visiting Time

Not yet widows, not quite wives,
a clockwork army, they arrive
wielding lipstick smiles like
tiny blood-red riot shields.

They breach the locked ward doors and dig
from bulging shopping bags
today's provisions – sandwiches and sausage rolls,
home-made cakes and chocolate bars.

The old men mumble, the old men stumble,
the old men fumble, the old men grumble

while the not yet widows, not quite wives
unwrap with swift efficiency from tightly-wound clingfilm
this week's slice of love, sandwiched in a fresh-baked sponge
delicately iced with guilt, lightly spiced with sympathy.

The food is offered, mauled
by toothless gums, the good wives
bend to wipe the old men's chins, then
feed the fallen crumbs to gape-mouthed bins.

The visit soon is done. The women gather at the locked ward door
display their lipstick smiles, say firm farewells to men they love,
to men they know are on their way nowhere.

And with their emptied bags, their emptied hearts
each not yet widow, not quite wife departs.


6
No-one cries

In the psycho-geriatric ward
he wears slippers
which are not his.
He wears trousers, socks, a shirt
which belong to no-one -
not anymore.

In the psycho-geriatric ward
his soul is trapped in a cage
even you could not wriggle out of.

He wears a smile
which is not his
not like we knew.

He bears a crown of thorns
inside his head
which should be left on
no-one.

And no-one's eyes are closed.
No-one's hands are tied with red tape
he claims is not his.
He claims he cannot struggle out of.

No-one hangs his head and cries
this problem is not his
in the psycho-geriatric ward.


The Senile Dimension – Part Two

Go quietly then

You lollop, ape-like, shoulders stooped.
I feed you buns. You chomp.
Slavers foam the shadows of your chin.

I guide your hand towards a lidded cup.
Prehensile thumb and fingers grip. You slurp.

I close my eyes and think of you as you once were,
playing the chanter by the fire,
the rich notes swirling in the air
like sweet wood-smoke.

Reality, in a food-stained cardigan, pokes
me back to here and now.
Reality, pale and bony
wrists jutting from frayed cuffs
grunts for more sweet tea.

I chat, try to bridge the gap between us
with a thread of words. You start at ghosts I cannot see,
utter names of friends long dead.
From time to time, distraught, you weep.
Suddenly, you suck your thumb, drift into sleep.

Alone I wait.
No chanter music now to pass the time -
only the central heating's drowsy hum.

Outside the daylight fades,
the street lights flicker on and cast an eery glow.
And still I wait.

Soon they will come to take you from this darkening room.
Go quietly then. Don't rail. Don't fight.

Soon I too must make my way into the darkness of the night.


Blue Dawn

1
We enter the room you slipped out of
only a moment earlier.

Seated round your bed, we wait
as the heat ebbs from your body

until your hands, your brow
grow pale and cold as marble

until your absence grows as solid
as once your presence was.

2
Later we return to the house
you will never again come home to.
A black crow perches on a leafless birch,
rends the darkness with his raucous call – yet even so
it is the silence that most startles us.

3
As darkness turns to grey, I make my way back home.
Crossing Flanders Moss great herons rise from high untidy nests.
Clumsily they flap into a timeless sky.

A sudden buzzard, death gripped in its claws
bursts upwards, unexpected, from a hedge.

Grief swoops and sinks its claws into my heart.

4.
Beside the Forth a lone swan,
silver in the first rays of the sun
lifts gracefully towards a pale blue dawn.


Golden Daffodils

A year after you died,
you appeared, alive and well
at the foot of my bed.

While my body slept,
we strolled together
through the wood behind the house.

It was good to get the chance
to tell you all the things
you’d missed since we last met.

We stopped just where the birches thin
and fields unfold in waves.
We watched as dawn clouds raced across the sky.

I left you there.

Tomorrow, I’ll take flowers to your grave,
golden daffodils you helped me gather
last night in the wood.

Your favourite flowers, you said,
with their promise of the coming spring
their promise of re-birth.

Poems for a War

So, at last Serbia has tracked down one of the wanted war criminals. And brought all our minds back to the dreadful events in the Balkans during the nineties. I was lucky. I only witnessed what went on from the safety of my armchair. Yet what came home to me was how easily all this could have been happening right here in my country, in my home, in my street.

I wrote the following sequence at the time. One woman's tiny personal protest against nationalism and violence.


the country with no name

1
in the country with no name
they lined up all the buts and ifs
they lined up all the whys
they lined the question marks against the wall
and shot each one between the eyes

only the children were left
silently painting a thousand guernicas
with bloodied fingers


2
lines of makeshift beds in school gymnasiums
lines of staring eyes behind the chicken wire

lines where people hungry for peace
are struck by mortars while they wait for bread

stretch lines on the swollen bellies
of impregnated women

washing lines where the clothes of the newly dead
twitch in the breeze

lines of despair cut deep in the faces
of the dispossessed

demarcation lines front lines confrontation lines

enemy lines which ebb and flow
across a blood-soaked map
on a tide of human suffering

so many lines in one small war
and still, no-one will draw the line
and say, enough, no more


3

private greed relaxes between offensives
dressed as a tree
but for the jackboots
and the blade in his right hand

his left hand cups an apple. he slips
the blade beneath its tight red skin, a
ribbon of red and pink
twists from his fist
the white flesh weeps, desire seeps
from his lips, a final nick
the skin flicks to his feet

behind him, cherry trees hang thick with blossom
the sky is blue, the world is still beautiful
while by his feet, faithful as a dog
his ak40 sleeps, its muzzle black and warm

private greed squints at the fireball of the sun
then sinks his teeth deep
in the apple’s flesh

in the distance a child is wailing
a village is smouldering
mother courage is dragging her cart
her shoulders bent
her feet bloodied and sore

private greed spits out seven glistening pips
then grinds his jack-boot heel, hard
on the apple core

4
will your people raise monuments in honour
of you who fought your neighbours

will they raise monuments
tall and white against the sky
built from the bones
of your neighbours’ children

will your fathers drape your coffins
with your nation’s flag

will they drape your coffins
with a blue-veined flag
stitched from the skins
of other men’s daughters

will your mothers speak your name with sadness
will the skies weep with the shame of it

will your brothers light a yellow flame
in memory of you who fought and died
will the flame burn forever
will it be a flame of hatred

from Kicking Back by Magi Gibson

Gorgeous, or what?

Vintage, eccentric, eye-catching and makes me smile.



Ian Macpherson in Byres Road, July 2008

Bastille Day plus One

Phew! Just finished the first draft of the second book in the Seriously Sassy! series for Puffin. And received the final editorial notes for book one. I'll start on them tomorrow, but tonight I'm taking a wee break. Hence this rather overdue posting.

Over the last couple of months I've been on Hoy, one of the Orkney islands, which was idyllic, Dublin to see Ian's mum, London for the annual Puffin Party - brilliant! - and Manchester where Ian's oldest daughter, the one and only Rosie Macpherson was performing in a play she and some fellow students devised together. Like father, like daughter.

So it's good to be home. And yesterday I had a chat with my neighbour, a francophile, who wished me Happy Bastille Day. Which reminded me of the following poem...


In a Paris Supermarket July 13th 1989


We were bantering about what to buy – I
planned a coq-au-vin to celebrate
the Revolution. You said why not go
the whole hog, pig out on a leg of pork
cooked in cream and calvados, and already
our trolley was full enough to feed
a third world nation when we saw him.

He had a loaf of bread pointed
at the check-out girl. She was counting out
the pile of coins he’d emptied from a purse.
You thought he was seven. I said
nine or ten, but underfed.

He didn’t have enough to buy the bread. But
he waited like a wide-eyed rabbit, frozen
in the middle of the road, with a bottleneck
of trolleys queuing up to run him down.

One franc more, the girl said really loud.
But we were too stressed out, tapping our toes
and tutting, or maybe we were mesmerized
by muzak - but no-one made a move and suddenly
the kid ran off without the bread.

Let’s leave this trolley here, you said.
I’m not hungry any more.
I guess we’re still a hundred years too early
to celebrate the Revolution.

Magi Gibson

A Multicultural Scotland

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to give a talk and reading at Strathkelvin Writers, a group that meets in Bishopbriggs on the edge of Glasgow. It was a lovely evening.

Then after my wee appearance on Melvyn Bragg's Travels in Written Britain, Leela Soma, one of the writers who had been there that night, emailed me. She thought I might like to read her own poem about her Scots/Indian identity.

I liked the poem so much I asked for Leela's permission to put it on this blog. So here it is...

This is my ain land

Thirty years an' mair I breathed the grey-tinged air

Missed ma ma an' da, sisters an' brithers tae

Worked hard, paid taxes an made ma hame here

Embraced the lingo, flitted an bought thay messages.



Naw, no a peely wally, glaikit, glum nor gallus me

I hail fae yon faraway India, spicy rich, colourful tae

This’s where I’ve lived longer noo, hame is Glesca 

Ma heart an' soul mixed and proud, I’m me

No Indian in India nor Scot in Scotland, a new wain
Fae an Indian womb, nurtured rich in tartan air

Am I noo wan ae Jock Tamson’s bairns?



copyright Leela Soma 2008