Zero Hours E-Book

Rab Wilson

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 112

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Ceci n'est pas Stonehenge', this is the cosmos,distilled to elemental rock and stone,depicting that interstellar collision,four billion years away, a chaosof realignment unimaginable,when all the worlds we knew or didn't knowosmotically pass through each other like ghosts,to form new galaxies intangible. Written mostly in Scots, Rab Wilson's new collection is a timely comment on our climate of zero hours contracts and benefits sanctions. From social issues to politics, from the sublime to the absurd, Wilson homes in on the unique aspects of life in Scotland and sets out his poetic manifesto for our country's future. Rab Wilson is a widely published Scots poet, and has performed his work to all kinds of audiences throughout Scotland.

Leseprobe

RAB WILSON was born in New Cumnock, Ayrshire in 1960. After an engineering apprenticeship with the National Coal Board he left the pits following the miner’s strike of 1984–5 to become a psychiatric nurse. As a Scots poet, his work appears regularly in The Herald as well as Chapman, Lallans and Markings magazines.

Rab has performed his work at the Edinburgh Festival, the StAnza poetry festival at St Andrews, the ‘Burns an a’ That Festival’ at Ayr and has been ‘Bard of the Festival’ at Wigtown, Scotland’s National Booktown. Additionally Rab is a previous winner of the McCash Poetry Prize and in the was ‘Robert Burns Writing Fellow – In Reading Scots’ for Dumfries and Galloway Region. Currently a member of the National Committee for the Scots Language Resource Centre, Rab regularly attends the parliamentary Cross Party Group for Scots language held at Holyrood. He is a ‘weel-kent’ advocate for Scots writing. He lives in New Cumnock with his wife Margaret and daughter Rachel.

Readers o this buik micht be keen tae increase their knowledge o Scots wirds bi gaun online an consultin the Dictionary of the Scots Language at www.dsl.ac.uk.

First published 2016

ISBN: 978-1-910324-77-6

Typeset in 10.5 point Sabon by

3btype.com

The author’s right to be identified as author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts 1988 has been asserted.

© Rab Wilson 2016

Contents

GENERAL POEMS I

Zero Hours

In Memory of Tom Carrick

Richter Scale

First Bike

With Andy and Amanda in the Charity Shop

Salmon Nets and the Sea

Glasgow Close

The Spey Wife

There it is…

JAMES HOGG POEMS

Auld Lass

Boy Racers

The Teapot

Thir ir the Steps o Glendearg

Cornua Reparabit Phoebe!

The Mairriage Stane

Souch…

GENERAL POEMS II

Cultyir at Killie Odeon

Double Act

The Paralytic Games

Delighted by a Dallop Outside Dereham

A Spider’s Web Glazed with Frost

Chairm

Elegy

Salmon at Euchan Falls

BURNSIANA

Burns Country

Portrait of Colin McLuckie

Negative Sublime II (or Portrait of Lord Byron)

Blind Ossian

Sir Walter Scott

Blue Burns

Twa Plack

GENERAL POEMS III

Apparatus for Determining the Absolute Om

Can ‘Can’?

On the Marriage of Dear Carr to his Beloved Girl

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie

I The Lanely Daith o Maggie Thatcher

II Maggie’s Funeral

III Everything Must Go…

Bank Robbers

Royal and Ancient

War Memorial, Afton Valley

Roads

LERMONTOV

Fareweel Unwasht Russia

Ma Kintra

The Dagger

GENERAL POEMS IV

Six Swans a Swimming

What The Alien Speaks of When he Speaks of Love

Dirty Des

Gerry Sells the Jerseys

Gallus!

Fourteen Coos

Lown

If I could Just Go Back there Once Again…

IM NHS

Martin’s Moral Compass

Cuid Hae Duin Better

A Rhyming Epistle tae Dave Prentis

NHS Ayrshire’s Garland

Leviathan

Armistice Day

OWERSETTINS

Epilogue

Ah wis Deid, Syne Leevin

The Tuim Boat

The Gowden Boat

GENERAL POEMS V

Desert Island Discs

At the Church of the Latter Day Empiricists

God’s Telephone Number

Glenafton 2 Camelon 0

Heich Simmer

Eftir the Kistin

The Auld Toon Schuil

Here We Go…

Polquhirter

Wheel

The Christmas Bulbs

Equipoise

Shards

GENERAL POEMS VI

Paradise Enow!

‘Seldom Seen’

Saint Valentine

Jockeys Destroyed!

Lang Ling Legammachie

Skeely Fowk

The Question

RANT

Rant

The End o the World

State of the Nation

Hou the First Tory wis Made

Promises, Promises…

Dave’s Hair: The Journey Continues…!

Ode to Lord Winston!

GENERAL POEMS VII

The Waithercock

Treasuir

The Stanes Dwam in the Dykes

Multiverse

Burnt Sienna and Periwinkle

Raxin fir the Dawin

Veesion

Design

The Horseman’s Word

The Greater Sea

Notes to Zero Hours

General Poems I

Zero Hours

Whit drave wee Sam tae commit suicide?

(The young team tanned him ootside Central Station,

thon ah think wis the last straw, Sam hud naethin.)

Ask the DWP why Sammy died.

Cos evri day we’re subject tae their tricks;

It’s aa a kind o mad ‘Catch 22’

when faced wi thae ‘rat catchers’ doun the Buroo;

Ma adviser questioned ma ‘work ethic’!?

Ah’d applied fir twa hunner joabs this year,

‘Where’s the proof?’ he said, ‘Job application?’

‘It’s oan ma phone!’ ah said (nou gettin thrawn!)

‘You know we can’t take that – the rules are clear.’

An there an then ah’m sanctioned fir eicht weeks,

oot oan the pavement ah wis physically seeck.

Ah telt thaim aa aboot it at the funeral,

Billy kent him tae, ‘Oh aye, that bastart!’

Sammy’s maw an paw, they baith luikt shattert,

haudin haunds an greetin in the drizzle.

They hud a wee tea at the Boolin Green,

Billy said, ‘Did you hear aboot Sandra?

she’s taen the wean an left, cause o her man,

a maniac, he’d beat her up agane –

it seems they muived her tae anither toun,

puir sowl ower feart tae gang fir interview

in case she met her man there at the Buroo;

the same yin sanctioned her, ah tell ye suin

fowk lik Sandra wha hae nocht tae their name,

wull be forced tae steal juist tae feed their weans.’

Job Centre types, they dinnae gie a damn;

wi their ‘claimant commitments’ an ‘work programmes’,

an their ‘hidden targets’! the auld flim-flam!

Ah tell ye frien the hale thing’s juist a sham!

Sleekit tae; they asked if ah’d a dug,

ah huvnae, but ah kent whit they wir at –

gin ye’re fit tae walk the dug or cut the grass,

they’ll cut yer DLA, but ah’m nae mug!

Thaim that’s unemployed are twice as likely

tae dae theirsels in, thon’s whit the paper says,

nae wunner, stuck inside the hoose aa day,

leevin oan Iceland pizzas or the chippy.

Nae wunner that some think tae ‘shoot the craw’;

An mibbes, truth be telt, they’re best awa.

Ye cannae plan a life oan ‘zero hours’,

no if ye want tae earn a daicent pay,

ok fir pensioners or students, say,

‘poacket money’, thon’s aaricht fir that shower.

Ah taen a wee joab at the nursing home,

the lassie there wis kind, cut me some slack;

it helped tae keep ma ‘work coach’ aff ma back,

she said they’d text ma shifts bi mobile phone;

ah’m still waitin here at twa a.m.

She said there’d be a chance o wark the morn,

but gin that happens hou can ah sign oan?

sae like as no they’ll sanction me agane.

Ah’ll mibbes switch the phone aff, try tae sleep –

but ah cannae get wee Sammy oot ma heid.

In Memory of Tom Carrick

Who Tom Carrick was? I’ve no idea.

But this pristine new bench now bears his name,

A strange recycled plastic requiem,

Atop its concrete plinth, erected here.

Mid-summer, your respite is surely welcome,

Tucked in the shade of an old sycamore,

I ponder grass strimmed perfectly; footsore,

On this blue day of endless buttercup sun.

The view from here’s astounding! I’ll confess,

Forcing me to muse upon eternity,

Cairn Valley stretching to infinity,

Distant hills shimmer into nothingness –

And I who thought nirvana some lost cause…

Perhaps we all know who Tom Carrick was.

Richter Scale

It’s not the blur of right hand pyrotechnics,

The frenzied cataracts of arpeggios,

Rush of crescendo, fall of diminuendo;

It’s more than just that mastery of technique.

Etude No. 1, C Major, by Chopin,

Requires almost a splitting of the mind,

A schizophrenic state in which you find,

A curiously musical Yin and Yang.

Both sides equal, but which do you prefer?

For me the poise and elegance of the left,

Restrained in stately grandeur, subtle, deft,

Holds me in the player’s force majeure.

Sviatoslav takes us to another place,

Off the scale, transcending time and space.

First Bike

Ye aye hud a mind o yer ain,

fowr year auld – ‘Me dae it amsel!’

An patience wis ne’er yer first virtue;

thae stabilisers wid hae tae go!

Whiles oan some raicent TV show

a tip wis gleaned;

an auld pair o tights fir reins,

wrapt unner yer oxters,

aa set fir yer maiden flicht.

The sycamores in Queensberry Square

blushed wi tints o ochre Hairst

as ye tottert an near fell,

tho gemme as a gowf baa,

up ye gat an sodgert oan,

wi me rinnin ahint ye siccarly,

haudin ye up till ye goat yer balance.

Then, aa o a suddent it aa clickt in;

the curb an check o yer bridle lowsed –

an aff ye flew athort the cobbled caur-park;

the yae ee cannily dairtin back tae me,

the tither dourly fixt oan the road aheid…

With Andy and Amanda in the Charity Shop

Escaping from the sea of Keswick’s tourists,

We took shelter in the Oxfam charity shop;

‘The most expensive in England!’ Amanda declared.

And she was right! As we trawled endless shelves

Of discarded books unloved, unread;

Though now one scarce metallurgical tome

Has found a willing and a caring home!

Andy and I gazed through the thick plate-glass,

That housed a hoard, an Aladdin’s cave,

Of vinyl LP’s that underscored our lives.

Joni Mitchell’s ‘Don Juan’s Daughter’,

Oasis (first pressing!) ‘Definitely Maybe’,

And Pink Floyd’s original gatefold ‘Wall’ –

A snip at seventy-five quid!

Here was ‘London Calling’, the Clash,

And I was a leather clad punk once more,

Straining at the leash of my studded dog-collar,

Whilst Andy gibbered feverishly

About Camel, and ‘Yessongs’;

Prog-rock-heaven rolling through

The Rolodex of his fingers.

(I vowed to the gods of rock ‘n’ roll

To find a stylus for my Dual CS 505 Mk3!)

Even the stuff we didn’t want we wanted,

No! Lusted for…

Peggy Lee and George Shearing;

Count Basie and The Mills Brothers;

Fairport Convention and The Fairey Band…

Transported to the land of our teenage kicks,

Rod Argent riffs and Angus Young licks,

The hardcore Bowie fans who ask;

‘We want more, and we want it fast!’

Like Rotten and The Pistols we’d no reason –

And it was all too much.

Music for Pleasure or Deutsche Grammophon,

The list goes on and on and on...

Mine and Andy’s lives revolving backwards,

At thirty three and a third rpm.

Salmon Nets and the Sea

Eftir the pentin bi Joan Eardley

Ae day ah’ll gang tae Catterline,

an ettle tae staund oan this verra spot;

Oan a day whan blaudin shooers

lash the cliffs,

an the ragin waves tear theirsels tae spails.

Picturin Joan in the cauld kalends,

wendin her wey doun frae the ‘watchy’,

tae stake her claim oan the stairk empty beach,

her cairty an easel her anely bield

agin the gaitherin storm;

The storm that raged athoot an athin;

‘If you look here Miss Eardley you’ll discern there is a

shadow…’

Ye turnt their oaffir o treatment doun.

Whaur cams the aefauld smeddum

tae thole sic things?

In the face o daith we can chuse tae leeve;

Turner thirlt tae the mast aff Harwich;

Joseph Vernet likeweys the same;

Thon Odyssean urge tae hear the siren sang…

Throu thir nets the gowl o the gandiegow…

The lift; gray, grashloch, grumlie…

A sweevil o spunedrift whips the stour,

yer easel cowps, ye pick it up agane

while saund an graivel an shairds o seaweed

meld wi iley pent athort the canvas.

Hapt agin the cauld ye staund yer grund,

tae win fir us the lethal achin beauty o the sea,

that gies sae much, an taks sae much awa.

Glasgow Close

Eftir the pentin bi Joan Eardley

Murder murder polis three stairs up,

the wummin in the middle door

hut me wae a cup,

ma heeds aw broken, ma face is aw cut,

murder murder polis three stairs up…

GLASGOW STREET SONG

Stuid bi the mooth o the close agane

There’s wee Jessie aa her lane,

She’ll no play peever she’ll no play ropes,

Nevir a peep doun at the shoaps,

Whiles stoatin the baws aff o the wa,

She’s aye the first tae let hers faa

‘Over the mountain under the sea,

My true love waits there for me...’

Her brither John aye spouts the Bible

Granny says that he is liable,

Tae mibbes gang aff the rails ae day,

He luiked at me a funny way…

Tap o the stairheid Jessie’s greetin,

Granny says she goat a beatin

Aff o her Paw (eftir a bevvy),

Said his denner wisnae ready,

Her Maw taen aff wi anither man,

The ‘sugary-cake-an-candy-man’

Ma granny says, an her friens aa lauched;

Nae wunner that the boy went daft!

An nae lang eftir, puir Jessie dee’d,

Ah’ve mind her in that dress o reid,

Hou we walked tae schuil, baith haund in haund,

Gran says she’s in a better laund;

Thon wis years ago, the nicht we plan

Tae hae a tear doun at the Barrowland.

The Spey Wife

Eftir the painting ‘The Fortune Teller’ by Jan Steen, c.1626–1679.

Ye hae a gleg ee Maister Steen, ah’ll gie ye that!

Nae dout ye’ve pree’d this scene a wheen o times,

Some fond bit lass, loof fou o scores an lines,

Gets taen in bi some sleekit bauchlin jad.

Nae dout she’s speirt aareadies doun the port

Whit airt the bairnie’s faither micht hae gang –

Ower late fir penny jo; sic kennin wrang

Haes labelt her langsyne a warthless sort.

Auld Lucky hovers like a hoodie craw,

It’s ayeweys warth a groat tae keep thaim sweet,

An sailors dinnae want a lass that greets,

Sae lat the Spey Wife wice her wi her saws;

As lang’s the Reel o Bogie she maun dance,

Her wee ill-cleckit wean can tak his chaunce.