More geology

Back in 2005 I published Mementoliths, a wee pamphlet where each poem was introduced by a short piece of writing on a geological or mineral topic related to the poem. 

This one was inspired by a trip with a friend to a quarry near Middleton, Midlothian. She thought it was a quarry she'd visited as a child with her late father. She described it to me, and I thought it sounded wonderful, but I couldn't place it. So we went to Middleton, and it wasn't like that at all. It was...



The Wrong Quarry

Blue flakes litter the grey sky bowl.

We pick our careful way

between squelch and slide,

totter and bog-soak.

A steady breeze removes

the heat of walking

from spoil-heap to cart-track.

We reach the carved cliff

and peck among sharpened talus,

seeking the pearly glyphs

of prehistory among industrial shards.

A mud burrow in the sandy stone

reveals a creature's traces

like the curling whiff of smoking cordite

from a dropped gun

beside an absent victim.

It's all about the tectonics of memory

shuffling continental fragments;

how a wedge of childhood

docks against the hard foreland

of an adult's dreams. Yet though

pink spikes of orchids drift

through the purple tufts of thistles

the way they always did,

the rocks have moved away,

buried or eroded. Time subducts

experience, when no-one checks

in the missing years. What's left

is mystery, uncertainty, the lost clues

to map our Polar Wandering Curve

and reunite a personal Gondwana.


Copyright  © Colin Will 2005

The solstice poem

Posting today for the winter solstice, this poem took its inspiration from William Dunbar, that marvellous Makar, who may or may not have taken his surname from the town where I now live. It's known his family had land in the area. At any rate, I like to think there's a connection. This is a dark poem, and I make no apology for that. Sometimes it really is dark.

This poem was written in 2009 and first published in The floorshow at the Mad Yak Café (Red Squirrel Press, 2010).

The Low Point

(after ‘A Meditatioun in Wyntir’, by William Dunbar, c 1460- c 1520)

“Dirk and drublie days” right enough,

but the heavens are not always sable –

some days there are true skies, and a wind

shifted from Siberia, to seek unfurnished skin.

Today the longer dark hours are filled

with entertainments then curtailed. It’s hard

to imagine what true darkness meant

for plays, poems, music – summer pursuits all.

Scratching by candle, each scrivener wrought

on quires of deckled paper, by goosequill and gallol,

words of wisdom, terms of love and learning,

some meters of beauty to catch future’s eye.

Warring motives lay on from every side.

Despair’s the easy one now, so much bad news

in these cold times, suggest the one

begets the other. Patience dismissed,

and fortune damned – predestiny leaves no room

for innocent actions. We may as well be doomed

as blessed, and with an equal chance. Causality

is on a winter break, along with warmth and light.

Slyly, with some pretence of favour, chilly whispers

question why I carry forward a life that soon

I’ll leave behind, with loves and friendships

broken links, unconnected leads and empty ears.

The forgetfulness of age is a brotherly service,

for remembrance of ourselves in youth

would give us pain – the way we were,

the things we did, the chances missed.

And death to come is final leveller;

low or high, we similarly stoop to enter

the same one-way system, a singularity,

the dimming doorway to a hall of nothing.

But yet, four minutes today, five tomorrow,

the nights imperceptibly shorten, and at some point

I’ll know times have changed, that summer pleasures

lie ahead, and will return. The ball rolls round.

Copyright  © Colin Will, 2009, 2010

The New Year poem

I don't celebrate Hogmanay - never mind why. I prefer to go somewhere with Jane for a walk in surroundings new to us or familiar, with a piece-box of salmon sandwiches (pink salmon, of course) and a flask of black coffee. It's been our thing for so many years that I've forgotten when it started.

This poem was written in the mid-1990s and published in 1999 in the poem-card Roundabout Livingston. The poem-cards were collected and put out as a Kindle e-book as Recycled Cards (available from Amazon).

The Ne'erday blaws

With no time for boozy sentimentality
we picnic by the sea each year.
Seeing existence as continuous
we have now no need of bells, besides,
there are, in each of us,
too many bitter thoughts
and sad reflections at this time.

Better to be blown by the first gusts of January,
seeing a brown and silty sea,
mounded by the gales,
appearing higher than the roadway.
We walk through an empty Culross,
discoverers of a new history.
We smile at each other
as rain slaps our faces,
crazy in alone being here
and delighting in being alone
but for the sermon-ready rooks
hopping solemnly in the shelter of the abbey ruins.

At North Berwick, past the socket
of an old eruption - green ash and purple blocks -
we turn a corner and hear the clicks
of crossbills feeding in the stunted pines;
on the sands a vortex of waders dodges each wave.

In Crail harbour
a seagull becomes part of the reflection,
paddling through windows, walls and lobster-pots.
It pauses before a mountain of floating snow
pretending to be a cloud -
the alchemy of winter skies.
In the sunset we drive home,
the light dimming quickly
as we cross the bridge.
The flicking cables make
a silent film of our flight
arching over a glittering Forth.


We walk through our local streets
seeing "For Sale" signs like corpse-markers
on a medieval battlefield.
The season calls for the placement of tokens
in graveyards - a colourful splash,
for Scotland's towns are mostly drab,
dull dwelling-places merely.
It reminds me of Black Forest window-boxes -
all those salvias defying the grim green spruce.
In our first winter in Mid Calder,
walking through the foggy woods
I heard, unseen, the calls of whooper swans,
an eerie sound at the time,
but no more significant than
"Here's tae us, wha's like us?"

"See yis a' next year?"
And I don't think.

We'll be looking out to some sea,
planning the fierce joys of sudden summers,
the new sights and novelties
reflected in each other,
for what we do best
we do best together.

At our ease we've grown,
and growth, if anything,
is what is meant by
what we are.

Copyright © Colin Will, 1999, 2015

The Raga poem

I've long been a lover of Indian classical music. I find it moving, absorbing and constantly interesting. The forms and instruments are varied, although Western music lovers will probably be most familiar with the raga form, played on the sitar. I think my introduction to Indian music was probably as a teenager, watching Ram Gopal, an Indian dancer, on black-and-white TV.

Later, as an adult, I heard, as did many others, Ravi Shankar playing sitar with Alla Rakha on tabla. I listened to many other musicians - Bismillah Khan, who played shehnai (a kind of shawm), Alla Rakha on the sarod, and many others. I suppose my favourite musician was Nikhil Banerjee, a master of the sitar, and my favourite raga is Raga Sindhu Bhairavi. It's a morning rag, haunting and wistful, but paradoxically it's usually played at the conclusion of a concert.

So I tried to write a poem which contained the same mood as the raga, but it came out as an evening meditation. Oh well. The poem was first published in Seven Senses, Diehard, 2000.


Raga Sindhu Bhairavi

High dust reddens the sunset.
Eyes stare over the Ganges to an infinite question.
As the rag begins, wistfulness falls;
the slow, stretched bass lines evoke nostalgia
for places never seen, times only imagined,
peace abstractly contemplated.
The river-music braids deep surges
and snaking surface currents,
exploring without rhythm,
stiffening gradually into form.
When the tabla enters, its beat channels the flow.
Within the tal strangely liquid stresses
impose a flexible constraint.

Even Ganesha, dancing at dusk, holds a full-bellied grace,
and dark-eyed gopis crowd to touch his broken tusk.
Their worlds transform in the hot and dusty dark;
their wombs will quicken and bring forth sons
nimble as Krishna, fluting the stream's song,
to be all their husbands never are.
The dark water sparkles with floating prayers
until they snuff and sizzle beyond the last believer,
blessed only by a golden moon.



Copyright ©  Colin Will, 2000, 2015

Translated poems 3

These poems were translated by my friends Helen and Maureen. Some wine was involved in the process, but I don't think any poems were harmed that day. I think they enjoyed it. I know I did.

La Croissance

(En mémoire de Edwin Morgan)

Déposez une graine dans le sol,

ajoutez un peu d'eau,

et la croissance semble inévitable,

à part accidents et incidents.

Et les graines forment des pousses

et des racines des petites touffes

des cellules à division rapide.

Sept générations de lignées cellulaires,

sept groupes de divisions,

et vous avez une plante adulte -

laitue, navet, courgette

ou arbre bébé.

Et au sein de ces machines vertes

les germes de la generation suivante,

comme des poupées matriochka, prêtes

à la fécondation.

C’est la même chose dans le royaume des animaux,

sept générations pour produire

une image finale, l'être complet.

Mais pas terminé, parce que ça serait la fin.

Nous sommes encore un croissance, mais à un rythme plus lent,

adjutant du volume, de l'expérience, de la sagesse,

en créant nos propres semences; une chaîne de fabrication

des gens, comme nous, mais différents.

Les graines de l'esprit croissent aussi,

et les paroles d'un poète vivront toujours,

une expansion nébuleuse de la conscience commune,

de Mercure à Saturne et au-delà.

Originally published as Growth in Strawberries, an anthology in memory of Edwin Morgan, and then in  The propriety of weeding, Red Squirrel Press, 2012

La Vallée Perdue

Descendez une pente raide à un ruisseau

dans une gorge profonde coupe, traversée

par une passerelle en bois. Baissez les yeux,

pour la lueur de l'eau brune transparente

glisser sur les pierres submergées,

descender des cascades courtes

crachant des bulles mousseuses.

La piste tourney abruptement de l'autre côté,

se tord entre des gardiens de granit.

Ensuite il y a les roches qui dansent

sur la couronne instable d'un éboulement géant.

Le dernier obstacle est une étroite corniche,

sans filet ci-dessous.

Soudain, voici le vallon caché,

fond plat avec du gravier de rivière

trop large pour avoir été déposé par
ce petit ruisseau. D’un rocher grand

comme une maison pousse un sorbier,

qui fair des dessins de bruyére pourpre

sur les pentes, touffes de maigres touffes d'herbes

qui nourissent à peine les moutons robustes.

Tout autour, une couronne de pics

exposent leurs côtés ombrageuse

definée par des taches de neige.

C'est là où on se sent bien à l'aise 

Qu'on est vraiment chez soi .

Originally published as The Lost Valley in Z2O, and then in The propriety of weeding, Red Squirrel Press, 2012.

Dépliant d’Instruction

Enlevez l'emballage extérieur

de la boîte dans laquelle

votre nouvel amant a été livré.

Détachez avec soin le matériel de l'emballage

de polystyrene – ces petit morceaux

de rêves et de souvenirs soldés

des amours passés, qu’apportent toujours

les nouveaux amants.

Pauvres chéris, ils n’en peuvent rien.

Familiarisez-vous avec les caractéristiques de sécurité

de votre acquisition, surtout du disjoncteur

qui garde l’âme de la surcharge émotionnelle.

Il faut construire progressivement le courant

de ce nouveau modèle. N’oubliez pas comment

votre dernier amour a échoué, spectaculairement?

Il ne faut pas le répéter.

Notez comment l’onglet «A» se adapte à la fente «B»

doucement et fermement.

C’est un offer complexe, alors n’attendez pas

la perfection dés le début. Ne quittez pas

à la première faillite. Cela arrive parfois

que toutes les pièces sont bien en function.

Réparez, lubrifiez, nourrisez, accessoirissez.

Ajoutez denouveaux composants, grandissez avec votre amant.

Ce produit ne porte pas de garantie à vie

mais il a été conçu pour vous donner des années de bonheur,

et nous espérons que vous serez entièrement satisfait.

First published as The Book of Instructions in By Grand Central Station We Sat Down and Wept, and then in The propriety of weeding, Red Squirrel Press, 2012.

 Séparation; un ghazal

La mer de roche-tourbillonné est une écume d’ oeufs,

et à la limite de la marée, je te laisse ici.

Je marche en célébrant le vent,

et à la fin de la route, je te laisse ici.

Les récoltes des haies de l’arrière saison

douces, sombre baies, que je te laisse ici,

Et si jus sucré devrait s’attarder sur tes lèvres

qu’il représente le baiser je te laisse ici.

Si je pouvais faire ralentir le temps

J’en voudrais plus avec toi, avant que je te laisse ici.

Le froid trouve des interstices entre foulard et manteau,

et donc, bien emitoufflée, je te laisse ici.

Je sais que les larmes dans tes yeux naissant du vent,

et pas parce que tu êtes triste, je te laisse ici,

Mais comme je me détourne de ma tête et me dirige chez moi

Je sais que je laisse une meilleure partie de moi, comme je te laisse ici.

First published as Parting; a ghazal, in The Eildon Tree, and then in The propriety of weeding, Red Squirrel Press, 2012.

This is probably the final batch of translated poems I'm posting at this time. There may be more in future. 

The heatwave poem

And then there was the year we took a gîte near Bergerac, in the Dordogne region, taking our eldest son and his then girlfriend with us. The temperature was around 40 C, and we were in a car with plastic seats. It was, to say the least, uncomfortable. At some point, quite early on as I recall, our son and his girlfriend decided to cut short their stay with us and travel to her parents' place in Germany. We drove them to the station in Perigeux. It felt like a door had closed.

The poem was first published in Seven Senses (Diehard, 2000). 

Red

Only movement cooled,
driving round each curving canyon lip
towards Rocamadour.

We parked on a hairpin loop
for a comfort stop behind bushes,
and here the heat hit in slow gusts;
awesome heat bounced from red cliffs
to black road,
and up to faces
already embarrassed by the sun.
S. couldn’t go, afraid of creepie-crawlies
creeping.

In the town, J. bought a hat
with a silly flower - all the shop had -
and all the time
Moorish heat, hell-hot,
dessicated lungs,
plundered our will.
In the street’s shade
hot dark air led us to the Black Virgin,
a sooty little gnome in a hot grotto.

At Padirac, our roasting queue shuffled forward
before descending the Gouffre’s cool throat
opening to a cavernous cathedral,
out-doming any human shrine.

Afterwards, every cave, each mango sorbet,
any church or roofed bastide was welcome,
until Perigeux,
where we knew, at last,
we’d lost our son to someone else.

Heat-blind, heat-dumb, heat-deadened,
eyes full of dried tears,
we couldn’t watch their train depart.
We trudged from nave to altar,
unblessed, and too hot to touch.



Copyright © Colin Will 2000

Translated poems 2

A second batch of poems translated into French by Leila Forissier.

Quelconque

Où les vieux messieurs achètent-ils leurs vestes beiges?
J'ai cherché dans les boutiques, mais personne en vogue
n'en vend. Il doit y avoir une chaîne,
un négociant sur catalogue, spécialisé dans le beige.

Il y a une variante - taupe - la couleur
de la soupe aux champignons, mais c'est quand même beigeâtre,
une non-couleur, la nuance de l'ennui,
du 'j'ai trop la flemme pour être coloré'.

Le beige ferait camouflage
dans un désert morne, disons le Gobi
en octobre, lorsque le vent des steppes
balaie de sable beige les plaines infinies.

Caracolant parmi les rares herbes grège
de petits rongeurs beiges creusent, élevant leurs petits
tapis sous terre attendant d'être beiges
pour se fondre dans le paysage désolé.

Le beige doit bien avoir une vertu salvatrice,
un trait qui m'a échappé; un fait beige
qui en justifie la fade existence.
Je cherche encore des arcs-en-ciel beiges.

 Published as Nondescript in Sushi & Chips (2006)

Tr Leila Forrisier

 Sept Lunes

La première lune est tout juste décroissante,
et pâle, haut dans le ciel bleu-jour.

La deuxième est le tranchant d’une épée,
à minuit, Auvergne, découpant
le velours jonché d’étoiles.

La troisième porte un halo,
présage de neige.

La quatrième lune est un rond de beurre
dans une chaude nuit de moisson, étouffée de désir.

La cinquième lune, éclipsée par la terre,  
est d’un rouge boueux, augurée de prophéties.

La sixième est occultée à maintes reprises
par des nuages vacillants.

La septième lune est celle
que l’on ne doit pas nommer.

 Published as Seven Moons in Sushi & Chips (2006)

Tr Leila Forrisier

Le Crochet

C'était la pièce sous les toits
et l'été nous baignions dans la touffeur.
Étendus sur le lit, certains de ne pas dormir
jusqu’à ne plus nous soucier de trouver le sommeil.
La sueur perlait entre nos corps
et le drap au-dessous. De sexe, bien-sûr,
il n'était pas question, tout contact proscrit.

La lune montait dans le coin
du velux, blanche
tranche de tarte, s'arrondissant
en pizza d'argent. Le souvenir me vint,
comme s'il venait de m'échapper,
de la présence d'un loquet
sur le châssis de la fenêtre, que quelque part
se trouvait une perche munie d'un crochet,
crochet qui n'allait que dans ce loquet,
et rien d'autre.

Je me dressai de mon côté du lit,
l'humidité montant à nouveau
de mon dos, l'arrière de mes cuisses.
Le fourre-tout, le placard de la souillarde,
était notre cache pour les choses
dont nous ne pensions jamais avoir besoin
et elle était là. Debout
sur le lit, je levai le loquet
et laissai entrer l'air conditionné lunaire.

 Published as The Hook in The Propriety of Weeding (2012)

Tr Leila Forrisier