Read Raw Ltd

The Wear

I miss it you know

in a funny sort of way

despite my desperation

to get away from it all

The weary riverside

with that strange pagoda

overlooking artefacts

of cows and the like

made from iron and steel

The musicality

of the Cathedral bells

ringing out after Evensong

a sound that I am sure

John Knox would have disapproved of

And that heavenly silence

after the bells stop ringing

just before life returns to normal

with the Angel of the North

watching over us …..
 

Too late to see

everything

as it really was ....

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********************************

Catherine McDonald  © April 2009

Kasia lives in Glasgow and is a regular attender of The Hidden Lane Cafe where she reads both poetry and prose

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Proud Mothers

Proud Mothers watch the passing Parade,

The drums beat loudly as our boys keep in step,

Shiny new soldiers ready for war,

Training is over , Green berets fly high.

What lies ahead no one is sure,

Perhaps they are too young to understand war.

Win Hearts and minds and fly the flag high,

Well thats what they are told when they march forth to Die.

Our boys trample down the Taliban Scum,

Proud Mothers await the return of their Sons.

They scream;  “more body armour” and support for our lads,

And Taliban children die in Jihad.

Inhuman brutality is beyond comprehension,

Yet we march on with Military pursuits.

God and Country, Hearts and Minds,

Or maybe just Dollars and Politicians Headlines.

© Malcolm McDonald,  February 2010,

Crossford, Dunfermline.

Malcolm is aged 51 and lives in the village of Crossford in Fife.  He  holds a BA degree in European History and Sociology.  He is a qualified Mental Health Nurse, Hypnotherapist and works for the Oil & Gas Industry as an Offshore Medic.

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Jigsaw Puzzle

Five hundred fragments
of unfulfilled dreams
one piece missing

Cobble stones
hot scree
white painted houses
Zaragoza, tharagotha, sarogosa
no sea
chipped window boxes
broken venetian shutters
waves and waves and waves
of lovesick sun flowers
all yearning for a vase of their own

White tripe disguised
by exotic names of forgotten places
lurking under tapas trees
only its smell giving it away

Spanish train
murmurs, mutters, murmurs
through seven hours
of desert and despair
held to the rails by smoke
clinging from the end carriage

flamenco fighters, bull dancers
bull fighters, flamenco dancers

A fork of lightning
breaks up the sky

Last piece unattainable
reported missing
if recovered
will wipe out the dream


© Catherine McDonald February 2010

Catherine McDonald was born in Glasgow and lives in Portobello, by the sea.  To date, most of her poetry has a coastal theme.  Her poem, "Chocolate" appeared on our rolling poetry page back in October - this one has more of a Spanish feel to it! 

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 INAPPROPRIATE        

On yellow lines it stands forlorn

Abandoned old blue banger,

Parking lonely by the kerb

No owner ever seen to drive it.

    But the steering’s firmly locked

    wheels held by ostentatious clamp.

    Why?

‘Er… Hullo, hi there, Guys.                                          

Don’t think that I am begging but

please help me with donations              

for I have no-one in this country.’

    Speaking in her London accent                                       

    She swiftly works the crowded carriage.

    Lies?

                        Our solemn suited leaders

                        Go jovially for war

                        Khaki clad young soldiers

                        Board transports on command

                            The manicured hands at length wield pens

                            Turn bitter war to tainted peace                                

                            But,

    who died?

Mary Strick, February 2006

                                                    ---o0o---

Photography Is All About Light.

From under dark storm clouds a shaft of light

illuminates a tree intensely yellow.

Brave flaming sword protecting Eden’s gate,

defiant challenge to dark pines that frown

and give salute to Winter’s coming gloom.

In awe I press my camera shutter.  Click!

Next day a lustrous sun in lapis sky

pours light on transformed scene.  A gilded tree

of splendour, robed in russet, red and gold

befitting Midas’ court in royal richness

pays Autumn tribute to past and future bounty

I capture eagerly this different scene.

A difference wrought by light.  Click!  Click!

Photography is all about light.

Mary Strick, December 2008

                                                                      ---o0o---

Life Everlasting.

My tree is being robbed

my Autumn tree of splendour

robbed of leaf of gold

cruel winds bullying

howling

stripping

Branches dance to storm songs            

challenge ruthless adversary .

some dogged leaves remain  

staunchly clinging

unyielding

hoping

I watch high drama through the window

my tree defies cruel Winter

knowing Spring will surely come

and Summer’s warm returning

rebirthing

living

                                                                         Mary Strick, December, 2009.

These are both about a tree in the Glen opposite, which I watch daily from our windows.  It fascinates and inspires me

Mary Strick grew up in South Africa. of Scottish (100%!) stock and now lives in West Kilbride.  As Mary puts it:- "Other than chattering away, storing up observations about the world I lived and live in, enjoying letter writing, I was too busy bringing up kids and helping to run a farm to have fancy ideas about creative writing.  Who me? - you must be joking, would have been my response. The poetry bug has sneaked up unbidden and left me and mine with a feeling of astonishment."

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Nude Sensuality

Desnudo sensualidad – a painting by Francisco Alarcón

Dew point

looks to you to chase

the delicate moths of mists

on your short tether.

To put red lips

on pencilled life models,

you don’t have long. 

A glare of winter,

a wink long enough

for a rumour to start.

Dishonesty

Desnudo Pelo Recogido - a painting by Francisco Alarcón

behind her back

he is dancing

cheek to cheek

rhythm

he never shared

with her

she is blinded

in the left eye

by the brittle brim

of honesty

she wears

as a shade

blurred

by a single

ice blue tear

Spinning Jenny

in a soaring ash tree

hung with coloured ropes

Jenny spins

in a ring, a full moon,

singing upside down

on the final note

she falls for silk

like a tissue

to catch her

Nightingale

The hour before dawn

falls in fragments

of patterned glass.

Dewdrops light

the nightingale’s wings.

His song is dusted with mist.

A low echo to the river.

I put up a fresh canvas

and sketch a frieze

of drying peppers.

To bring up the sun

and silence the nightingale.

Now I can hear

each blade of grass grow

in the morning’s dwam.

Hello
 
I divide my writing time between Scotland and Spain. Born and raised in Fife, I now have homes in Edinburgh and Alhaurín el Grande. I have been a member of The School of Poets at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. My first collection of poetry entitled 'Catapult to Mars' was published in 2006 by Poetry Monthly Press. I have a poetry blog at www.catapulttomars.blogspot.com that welcomes poetry submissions. Here are a few poems for Red Raw.
 
Slainte
 
Gordon Mason

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Grey Heron at Peninver

The grey heron stands

in falling twilight

her white neck strained onwards

one leg wide before the other,

a runner ready for the off.

She pulls her neck down and in,

head horizontal with the sea-line

along her body, then a turn

and up, up, up,

like Tai Chi for birds.

But from the front she is ungainly,

her knees knock together, busty, a frump.

She strikes a pose

and I’m reminded of my gran,

lost and uncertain in a station.

In fact she’s only testing, knows

the time of the tide, the best fish,

when to leave, when to arrive, like any elegant lady,

and how not to ruffle water when dinner is about.

But mostly, how not to be distracted by the curlews

or the black backs

or the crash and blast of waves,

or the sudden splash of seal pups,

their belch and shout in the quiet,

or the grace of silent mountains fading with the day

or a million little thrushes, pipits, swallows, larks and sparrows,

or me with my binoculars staring at her hard

the way she stares into the water and pretends she is not there.

Still Water

The water in my stomach is the stillest it’s ever been.

From rising

         off plains and seas

to falling

            as rain

                                                             sweeping mountain tops,

running

             in rivulets

                        down rocks

                                      into gullies

                                                 to streams and rivers

                                                                    into reservoirs

                                                                                    rippling under wind

                                                                                                          and shooting

                                                                                                                        down

                                                                                                                         dams

                                                                                                 into boiling wet infernos

then oozing along gargantuan pipes

                                                              to smaller andsmaller ones

until it halts a second behind my tap

                                                            before gushing into a crystal glass in my hand.

It swirls past my teeth and tongue, down the gullet and into the stomach

                 where it lingers,

                                                  awaiting dissemination around the cells of my body

                               until at last it is as still as I am

                                                                   as I sit in my chair, book and pen in hand.

Glendaruel Camp

I, a woman, became a man that day,

           planning, organising, executing,

                  shuffling huffily when

                                                  my sister and kids did something else.

I installed the van, the family

                                in the camp-site then,

           over-whelmed, felt the need to be

                                                                         not there,

                                                                                                  not where

          she and the kids were.

                                                           alone.

if she would just do things

                                          my way,

                                                        not hers,

                                    see the damage she is doing them,

then I could smile and offer

                          some witty banter

                                               exchange some pleasantries,

                                                                            intimacies even,

but this allowance of

              his little man’s stoicism,

              her little girl’s aggression,

              her voice as a weapon,

              his armour a fist,

       this is bad for children and

                                          the world,

                                               the future of

                                                     all worlds.

I fulfil my tasks,

   dinner, tidy, wash up, then

                                       sneak out the back way

                                                through bushes and playgrounds,

                                                                  past business buildings, and beyond.

the little gate clicks shut,

   the path steep,

       the air noisy;

                           spray soaks my face

                                       and the waterfall reveals itself

                                                                                  finally in a mighty roar

I give myself to this sound,

                   await a mighty echo in myself,

                                                                                    wait

                                                                                                          in silence

I find it green, very green, in fact

isn’t that a …? and that …?

                            well, does it really matter,

                            the species of the tree,

                            the number of species?

                                               the depth of moss that

                                               covers all, its velvet touch,

                                               rocks that made it happen,

                                               the path that someone built?

too wet to sit I

                 stand,       still,     just here,

                                                                  then here,           and there

until the roar turns to

                      silence and other people’s whispers,

                           moments sad or joyous

                                rippling through my body,

                                    pouring down the veins,

                                        flowing through my cells then on

                                             to somewhere else or

                                                                                       to nowhere

                                                                                                  to nothing.

her son meets me on the path

   back down,

worried, enquiring, demanding

                    to be taken to this waterfall.

                                                                  I tell him

                                                                            I will take him anywhere

                                                                                        I am able.

he nods appreciation at the roar and

         we return, two men to our sisters

and I see how hard they try

how hard it is and

       remember how hard it used to be, living

alone with kids

       and how tired I was then of being both

Mum and Dad.

Rain

The sun, when blazing,

raises every last molecule of

H - 2 – O,

spreads them lengthwise

and heightwise,

waits,

until two clouds bump together

like bathtubs thrown by giants

and spill their precious goods.

Down they come in verticals,

diagonals, horizontals,

‘til a maelstrom of a mish-mash

stirs a very potent brew,

and in all the glens of Scotland

the battles still rage.

Ba Bridge

black burn

brown water

white rapids

grey stone

green lichen

pumping heart

such are promises

sunlight on mid-morning

a pocket full of rice

the roads are strewn with seaweed

the police have called me twice

the blind girl did a sword-dance

the rats are in a flutter

the cars are red and green and blue

I did not hear you utter

a single, solitary word

it’s only crowds with you

the doctor came, he brought his wife

and now that we are through

with pots and pans and cooking sauce

the chairs are in the garden

the sun’s been on them all day long

my pet mouse ate the lardons

pink clouds are at the window now

and bed-time is upon us

my book is falling on its face

winged chariots a promise

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Gawain in the Green Forest


At the centre is the sun
But our man can’t mind the path.

Kids won’t play on his estate
And all that’s left is to tilt
For older, darker lakes.

At right, bronzed selkie brides
Sea monsters, sirens, nix
Hawk their wares
As loach lap the black ink in ratio.

Tractors wallow idle in the fields,
Clung to by moss and rust;
Silage mires their treads, lodged inside
A corona of flecked paint – golden hair
Lionised in the warming sun.

Ahead,
Our man finds him
Like a child found static
At the 1939 world’s fair

Green knight asks if 
His revenant bones
Still gird the worthies round;
If tubers reach for his dead boot-soles
To aid him in his hiding from the cold.

Gawain’s answer, tough as jail
Weakened by temptation to the ground – 
Hasten to me, sir knight 
Our king’s no longer in the green.

***************************************************

 
No.58, Slorkram

This stilted house with tacit heart speaks
Out in castigation of the card-counting
Swindlers gambling by the river.

His ferny feet point to secrets buried
Deep in the soil, down beneath the timber;
Where, all earthy, only spiders stray.

Together we watch the sky like television
Screens: lapis days turn back to black
Booted nights but we natter on

Letting colours creep and silence shuffle
Out from the shadows in the shrubs -
Like milk mixing into tea. Tonight

It’s the ether eyeballing us; its winds gallop
From tufts to yarns then settle in yawns –
A telltale sign to canter off to bed.

‘Remember Michael’ (with a voice
As brass as bells): ‘Inside all bones are white
And souls are soft as ripened Mango’.

‘Of course. I won’t forget it.’
And tomorrow can we talk about
That Big City who lost his feathered hat.

 
Owen
 
Reilly, deepest dreamer, sleeping
In the bedroom, petal pink
And handsome: around a thousand
Broken pieces, long black locks
Like dirty cats’ tails; both little feet
Bouncing to hidden rhythms.
 
How he rests this way is beyond me
For whom night comes in teasing chapters:
Light nods, intruded upon by sun
Turned tangerine, on clumpy floorboards.
 
Soon he’s up too
Straight for the rolling tobacco
Lungs like power stations;
Greets day with coughs and chuckles.
Mornings spent tiptoeing
Around resting Reilly
To the sound of damaged vinyl

Are among my fondest reveries.
 

***

Nowadays, we’re out of sorts
Reilly and I, though I still visit
The pictures smiling, framing secret
Words through wine-stained lips.
 
I’m sure we’ve both said it out loud
(a train-station aberration perhaps):
‘I miss you’; afterwards feeling a little
Exposed - like damp leaves or rotting twigs
Laying idle in guttering.
 
It seems his crooked teeth, this crooked tale
Weren’t quite as unsightly as first
I thought. It’s just a matter of fact-finding -
Like discovering the stories

Behind scratches in wood.
 

Door, Roof and Drainpipe.
 

The noises stairwells make are grumbles
of grey, blue and green. In winter they speak
with snowmen, come spring they’re calling
to pigeons or passing gangs of sparrows.
Summer’s a season to watch what people do
and through autumn, it just depends:
if there’s Staffies around they’ll yap away;
if not, a rusty bucket does just fine.

Our antique Edinburgh tenements
have big beastly vocal cords, to bellow
through the gales and hails; you’ll find elders
cackling (having gone a bit senile)
at sheltering infants, drenched to the bone
or traffic-jams festering like old fruit.
It’s akin to how a passing boat salutes another -
one sturdy honk on the horn and a wily smile
pinned to the puss of the captain.

The lighting comes in lantern form and blinks
like candles battling a testing breeze.
Though the smells exuded, distinct from lavender,
pack quite the pong - all musty, musky, wet
and leathery. But rest assured
it’s nothing wicked; more like a little
too much salt on supper.

I think of my favourite stairwells as wise
old men; a thousand creases in the skin
and mottled beards they’re constantly twizzling.
Each like the bard, tinker or storyteller
has a handsome ken - from roving fields and forests
and talking with strangers.

These jovial giants stand shoulder-
to-shoulder with Gulliver and my granddad.
As for the rats, Gremlins and even more
sinister goings-on they host...well
we can’t always choose who comes to visit
or at what hour they call.

News Cast

Siem Reap is stitched together
With huts and hovels, electrical wires
And bendy barbed fencing.

Each day begins by the oily trigger
Of a moto-bike ignition; post porridge,
Pre the first garish sales pitch.

People’s want to walk flummoxes the Tuk-
Tuk operators flanked by the bride - as if
They were cowboys pitching to astronauts.

Their red roads come without a welcome mat
Quickly turn to sloppy clay when damp;
Clump, bubble and cook in a sun

As indiscreet as microwaved eggs.
Bees are bigger, beer is cheaper
The coins have absconded for China -

So the poor paper’s all grimy and over-worked
Like scuffled sneakers. Each evening
Conducts its own incongruous symphony

Of capricious deeds (fickle as the habits of fish);
And though I end up bug-bitten and perspiring
Wildly, taken for mug and sometimes lonely  -

I am happy, in this wooden house, reading
A backlog of texts from a brimful list
So many, many miles from all your news.

Gladiators
 

Kosal, with managerial magnitude,
Proffers a bottle of Johnny Walker -
Caramellow-yellow
Like the petrol-filled pockets
Serenading bike engines
On every spooky corner.
This one’s more of an arena

And inside it, lurking, amongst
The gunk, gloop and phlegmy matter
Is a fighting fish: pretty, pink
And pouting, like a cartoon smooch.
An opponent fidgets in his own den:
A plastic bag once turgid now globby
As a sopping marshmallow.

Each delicate little samurai
Patrols his border - bottle up
Against bag - so as the pair
Can rile one and other
In a shimmering showdown.
Only in Asia is there cadence
In the pre-match scaremongering.

As an audience, we’re just as puckered
When the fish-bowl super-bowl
All kicks-off. Fins striking in clashing colours
Like kites sparring in the wind;
Imaginary symbols clang
As we make sloppy figures of eight
And grab at each other’s skinny parts.

They duel a little
But when the showboating crescendos
Into something a tad fiercer
He puts a firm stop to it. Just protecting

His investment; it only takes seconds
For the dollars on the head of a champion
To fold like a bad hand into scaleless
Scars and bird feed;

And these are testing times
For us all.

My name is Michael Pedersen and I'm a 25 year old writer of Caledonian stock. I've recently launched my first chapbook with Koo Press - the book has received a few anointments including a Poetry Society

Recommended Read.
 
I'm currently self-exiled in Cambodia completing my first full collection and assembling a film script.
 
Hope you enjoy this hamper of diction.
 
Much mirth,
 
Michael
www.michaelpedersen.co.uk

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My birds

I have a pair of buzzards

I keep them in the sky

above the woods I pass each day

They circle round like stringless kites

as if they might swoop

down for prey; just not today.

But buzzard birds are hard to train

no discipline, wrong kind of brain

I often find they’ve slipped the sky

and wait on fence posts

sharp of eye, for me to wave

before they fly.

Rhona Ritchie

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