INTERVENTIONS
ARTIST'S BAND AID
DO NOT ENTER
REMAKE THE NARRATIVE
POETRY
PIGEON WITH WARBURTONS
dead still
no nervous skull-shakes
or scuttle-pecks
still
hiding in doorway shadows
as sun slides
like a drunkard
down dull bricks
head still
a single slice of bread
hollowed out by hunger
a noose of brown wholemeal
round its stretched neck
still
waiting for the rain
to disintegrate this frame
or
step out
be spotted
by twelve
dirt yellow
hungry beaks
FIERCE
Today you were called a ‘Paki!’
By a six-year-old boy
He had four years on your two
You didn’t understand his language
But you knew it was not good
You were fierce
You told him to go out
Into the garden
Where he had always been
Alone, dragging himself up
Through these young years
You were fierce
Intergenerational ignorance
Tainting fresh landscapes
We are all refugees
In this mad world
And you are Zimbabweegie
You are fierce
You are all our futures
Streamlined steel, Clyde-built
There will be no hooliganism
Fearless within close shadows
Like Mary Barbour’s Army
You are fierce
THE WEIGHT OF A PAINT FLECK OR PAINT FLECK WAITING
stairwells tacked with
EXIT signs pointing
the wrong direction
picture framer’s woodchips
turn to sawdust
scattered through the air
gloss grey emulsion reveals itself
between footprints
suicidal paint spats
floorboard grooves
white walls drip
ideas
this place sweats concepts
like Gallowgate men
spout sexist comments
fucking beautiful
turpentine entwined with pencil lead: 5B
the idea waits
in clear liquid
intoxicating space: DO NOT INHALE
a single fleck of white paint
on an endless white wall
a solitary fleck curling
like a tongue to the rain
attempting to break free
but it hangs there threatening
the artist
who is compelled
to taste it
1993
1. REFLEX
The human condition ensures
we need to believe
that death is a comma,
and not a period.
Since pregnant
I’ve been expecting
you
searching for signs
from that unknown place.
I can’t stop thinking
looking at the door expectantly;
it’s been 24 years
almost a quarter of a century
since you held my hand
comatose.
Apparently it was a reflex
before they flipped the switch;
you raised both our hands into the air
expectantly
before lights out,
no more fire in your belly.
I miss you.
I want you to meet your granddaughter.
I cannot hear your voice.
2. COMA, COMMA
I am here
Can you see me?
Strip light buzzes overhead
Sickly off-white
The voice of your Paper Roses
Elevates me to the highest point
From where I am trying to come back
It reverberates around my being
Rattling the very shell of me
Faces come go
Your voice constant
Breaks beneath surface:
This stony-faced exterior
The person who looks like me
But is not me
Can you see me?
I am here
You sing,
I realise
The way your eyes
Deceive me
Inside, I’m crying
Brain can’t connect
To tear ducts
I realise
The way my eyes
Deceive you
Inside, I’m dying
3. DISCOVERY
i have discovered
that i have lost
the sound of your voice
inside the silence
of a deep envelope
i see you mouthing vowels
consonants
but the permanence
of your departure
leaves memories mute
i’d give anything
to hear those words
i can only hope
when blackness comes
that you’ll be there
to eradicate the silence
of living
with the shape of you
cut out of my heart