Glasgow, Monday Evening

After closing time, rain and wind has swept
all dirty breath away. Walls, older city cliffs
chaos of hometime’s deluge has left the city
broad and winded, euphoric, with glossed
neon washed onto its streets. Sky slides from
lilac east to cobalt west and in the south
canyons fill with pristine dusk.

Pigeons in Calder Street

Blue birds shoal in morning flight from canyon walls of Calder Street.
High above Govanhill’s wet dirt and spit,
sharp wings divine the air as one ellipse
drifts on the wind, rolls away,shows brilliant underparts,
flickers down on slate like rain on quarried rock,
murmuring the next move.
Black arrows hurl themselves on linen sky.

The Dram
Give me wet barley husks and gaping grist
washback malt and worts and sweetened sparge.
Let me add fonts of gurgling peaty stream
or icy gleaming springs fresh with white pearls.
From brimming tuns of yeast and swirling hot,
let low wines brought by throbbing veins drift up
through copper still and copper still and still.
Let glassy spirit rise, distilled and pure,
make feints with head and tail and fiscal form -
a young mermaid so pristine and yet so strong.
And let me smell her alchemy at last
in sherry, cherry red or bourbon brass.
And in the cask house, let me with angels share
this taste of Scotland's honeyed paradise.