East Highland Gothic
By Melkur
"All flesh is grass."
- 1014 reads
The Rotten Teeth of the Plough
Worrying the earth, tearing at the terre, New hope for the harvest born of pain As punitive steel bites the soft crust, Stripping away the living green, Fallow no longer.
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- 410 reads
A Saw-Doctor's Diary
Easter Monday: My duty, to save a soldier from death By bringing him near it. My friend, the sharp singing steel Lately born of a Sheffield mill No darker or satanic than anywhere else,
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- 397 reads
A Time to Reap
Season of leafmould, sudden rainfall, Mushrooms growing against the trees, Summer riches reduced to golden rags, This burning-bonfire time is the best.
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- 499 reads
An Teallach: "the Anvil"
Focus of our lifeline, the mouth of heritage, Winds blustering past its one great height Cannot put the lie to its monstrous head, The crowning glory past the Five Sisters.
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- 403 reads
Barn-Dance
The harvest cleared from fruitful furrows, Workers gather, Celebrating their accomplishment, their release. Many hands toiled to see this day, Now clapping,
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- 510 reads
Barrows
Cutting through, so deep down brown, Gouging holes like eyes in the earth’s face, Searching for secrets below. The haunted hush of the burial ground Breaks upon the perpetrators,
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- 309 reads
Bass Rock
Forth in the Firth As a rotten tooth Tormented in the storm: Remembrance of its tears within Soaring beyond ornithology. Walled prison silent in foam Sneering at solidarity of prisoners,
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- 573 reads
Captain John Reid and The Mermaid
A local myth from the Highland town of Cromarty. John Reid, at least, was a real person...
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- 1001 reads
Captain MacLeod's Widow, and Her Chair
Once commanding the deck of the cabin, It sits proudly in her front room. Full west, steering round the point of the bay, A sea widow sits in remembrance Far beyond the eleventh hour.
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- 360 reads
Change and Decay In All Around I See
Autumn, with its golden wheatfields, Streets full of dead leaves and whorled chestnuts, Sunshine straining to pierce the mists, Is the most lichen-like of the four seasons.
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- 635 reads
Come Change a Ring
Links, foreshadowed in the churchyard, Headstone material ancient and strong. How intimately the village gathers, So slight a community, to catch the fire,
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- 474 reads
Corn Circles
Harvest brings the dark season, The wicked pumpkin hour before the dawn. Unearthly forces walk among the crops, Bestowing blessings ethereal and strange.
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- 388 reads
Cromarty's Gaelic Chapel
Built for the influx of workers, Heeding the hammersmith call, The hard grind of the Industrial Revolution. Beneath this roof the Highlanders sang To the giving out of the line
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- 692 reads
Dandelion
Bright yellow flower to be found By the foot of the mourning stone: Almost an affront to be that colour, As a clown at a funeral, Hamlet’s gravedigger in jest.
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- 794 reads
Plague-House
The cross on the door says it all. Quarantined within her quarters, A lady-in-waiting to Judge Death. These are the dying rooms, no doctor comes
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- 973 reads
The Guardian goes Awry
Standing ragged against the rain, Only a torn jacket to scare the crows, Hunched in darkness onto the pole, Fixing him to his lonely spot. Row upon row, field upon field of crops,
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- 602 reads
The Day The Ravens Left the Tower
Caught in a flap, whistling down the wind, Winging their way back to the tower Ruined and crumbling by the westering fields. Built on a whim by Victorian industry,
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- 452 reads
The Wintering Sky
Horizon bruises into black and blue, Battered by the turning of the seasons, The harsh patterns of the coming solstice. A time of sacrifice, of old things dying,
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- 661 reads
Millwater
Gently festering by the fir-green, Soft-rotten spokes drifting in the stream, still Driving the wheel for a long-dead master, Its industrious revolutions come full circle.
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- 440 reads
Southern Alberta in the Fall
The sun’s blessing-rays spread across the fields, Melting the tenderfoot snowflakes of the morn Canola, wheat, corn, sugarbeet, all the season’s yields,
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- 818 reads
Pit Pony
The working lad retired from service, He peers at the rain with fading sight Blinkered for so long by his industry, No longer able to see fine mist falling.
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- 478 reads
Sutherland
A contrast between a place I went to on holiday while growing up, and the legacy of its creation by the mass evictions of the Highland Clearances in the early 19th century.
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- 414 reads
October Rhapsody
The whole of September was One delicious prologue Before that special day came. Waking up, I felt renewed. My birthday always fell In the traditional harvest holiday:
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- 458 reads
Funeral In Ardmore
The minister in black stares at gashed ground, This hole opening into eternity. Dan the crofter’s days are finished, Each one numbered in his Maker’s book.
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- 771 reads
Nihilism and Feathers
First crow to the kill dips his beak in gruesome ink, Red staining his glossy black plumage. Looking furtively for unwanted brothers, Those as bleak in outlook as he.
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- 343 reads
The Life and Times of a Halberd
Cut from the oak, in dying it lives again. Swishing harvest fields austerely as a judge, Beheading the still and silent grain, The axe come to call on Anne Boleyn.
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- 493 reads
Stack, Foinaven, Arkle
Stack, footstool of Thor’s voice, Tremble the earth before the sky’s blood So tender to melt the earth, Foisted and fostering, Awaiting grace on the fall of summer,
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- 350 reads
Maypole
Centre of the village, focus of historic fears, Children dance to the old songs, dark rhythms in their blood Unconsciously following the final rite in innocent passage,
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- 395 reads
Girders
Skeletal children born of industrial flame, Called into being to serve the outgoing ships, Before the Navy came to service the Firth. The frightening rush of Dreadnaughts
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- 354 reads
Netherfields
Four sails of the seas To navigate a dry-dock vessel, Square and stationary To turn the air to Dutch advantage. But at last the dyke has burst: derelict Stands the house of industry;
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- 354 reads
Walking With The Sunset
Blood of the brilliant day foregone Spilt in wet widening shadow, The mark of barbed wire fences growing long Scratching the surface of dung-filled meadows.
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- 490 reads
South Sutor
A sleeping giant, the headland rests Heavy on its side, water washing its head. Over the firth is its still brother, North Sutor, alike in dignity and history.
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- 478 reads
Saturday Evening, Aberdeen Beach
Lighthouse winks on the headland, Promising a haven for weary vessels. A boat with a beacon sails the tide, Out for herring, in the salt and smack of spray.
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- 961 reads
Storm Lantern
The widow wakes, fearful for her son, Striking the light that gutters by night, He herring-bound out on the ocean. Rain rides the croft as its master,
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- 295 reads
The Becoming of the Bell
The Amatola’s loss was Cromarty’s gain. The belle of Spanish shipbuilding beached, Grievously wounded in her side; Unable to resist the fierce allure of the rocks,
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- 451 reads
Moonfleet
Splintered remains of a brandy barrel cracked across, Witness to the descent of mariners Fallen in the bloodied brine. Excisemen gone mad with brandy and corruption.
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- 357 reads
Little Vennel
Short lane, leading Shorewards to the sea, The grinding breakers of the Firth, The world the town touches, Source of timbered incoming heaving to.
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- 344 reads
Where Stern Follows Prow
By the church, fragments of psalms Catch the air, too late to save Remains of the humble fishing boat. Upturned as the boats of Boanerges, Sons of thunder to calm the water,
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- 580 reads
What An Island Knows
Low tide murmurs as a bass voice receding, Revealing the survivors in its wake, A broken box of fish from the harbour mouth, Seaweed limp and passive on the rocks,
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- 473 reads
Salt Fields
Yellow-burning haymakers Stretch to the sea with lazy fingers, Combine harvesters chugging, The first day of autumn Burning the paint on their engines,
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- 486 reads
Lighthouse
Warning to the way of seafarers Not to tread in the style of the rocks, Wisdom shining from its headland To light the path of the righteous, The ungodly, the stained and the callous
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- 339 reads
Isle of May
Beneath the brightness of the Stevensons’ burning, Cormorants come to light on the igneous rock. Skuas dive by nesting razorbeaks, Puffin eggs tumble from the cleft cliff.
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- 604 reads
Nets and Neuks
Coarse stitching among the coves created, Reef-knots rising in serried rows, Stout resistance To the wiles of the hurricane. Family to family, son to son Tight-knit branches of the same rock,
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- 359 reads
St Monans Cave, Fife
Communion on the threshold, A service stilled by the sound, The rising of the waters. People wait to sing out by the stone, Reiterated response to the peace within,
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- 439 reads
Old Man of Hoy
Skeletal in outline with walking stick, Old before the Vikings put to sea To pillage the coast from coastline; Stark witness to robbery and fire, That hollow victory of the solid masts,
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- 430 reads
The Skull of Eriskay
Smiling from the air, these jaws of rocks unite In chomp and champ of spray, to consume them all. Saliva washing them in its salty way, Eye sockets glimpsed gauntly from the air,
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- 780 reads
The Wreckers
Dark deliverers from safety, they stand Shining as angels of light into the deep Anti-clockwise, taking ships away, Fog masking the sturdy towers of the true light.
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- 576 reads
Pitch and Tar To Soil His Hands
Dipped in the ways of the sea, Coil of rope tensed like a snake To pounce on the tie-up at the harbour. Dark blue the dragons and sharp anchors Weighing heavy on long-boned sailors’ arms.
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- 377 reads
White Horses
The sea is quick with the surging, Impatient hooves on the loaded waves Around the headland, herald of its coming, The stamping of the great green-gold rush
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- 510 reads
Weaver's Point
Deadbeat, the captain stands upon the deck, Rain slicing at his greatcoat. His face forlorn of future tidings of hope, Red hands grasp the helm without feeling.
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- 335 reads
Sea-Children
Tied to the ocean from birth, Reef knots supplant the umbilical cords Of the sea-children. Playing around the harbour Boats painted in preparation For the sea-children.
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- 501 reads
We Need A New Driver
Past smoke-stained cottages The dark engines pours ash of vitriol Over newly-baptised heads of babies peering From prams by the sweet shop’s windows, Clouding the sky a paler shade of grey.
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- 830 reads
November's Tavern
Fire flickers out from the hearth, To warm the back of the stranger, Hunted close by the law-hounds, Smelling the smoke of cured ham hanging, Lantern swaying from the roof.
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- 643 reads
Winter Arches
Based particularly on the Perth railway station.
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- 981 reads
The Stones
Shadow-walkers of the equinox, Charting the rise and fall of the seasons, They are a law unto themselves. Maintaining dark and tribal traditions. Mistletoe and magic preserve their ways:
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- 382 reads
The Utmost Shadow
People wait in fear, in awe, Of the cloud of darkness coming To swallow our sun whole, Glutted as a heavy snake feeding From the bone and sinew of a victim, Thoroughly evil in its digestion.
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- 345 reads
Equinox
The widening wedge between dark and day Equalises in September, A time of druidical feasts and memories. Summer’s sunlight lingers amid the first winter frost.
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- 338 reads
Police Public Call Box
Unyielding as the Tollbooth, Blue and firm as the saltire, A thick voice of law and order Muffled in the broad Georgian streets. Solid by the siren of the last war,
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- 532 reads