Let us drift down river you and IOn the flood, effortlessly We’ll sweep beyond the places we passedWhen we rowed upstream adventurously We’ll slow and look aghast at the over-hanging branchesThe Tacksman’s tree at last is hanging lifelessly The bark on its back ripped-off like rags and flowersNakedly searching for a soteriology Lest we shake … Read more

We sorrowed Jesters dance slow reelsshedding tears in happy masquessinging,“broken hearts don’t ever mendthus we learn to live with cracks.” The waning moon much more the realthe other fools us with its waxbreakinghearts: they never mend, solearn we must to live with cracks.

We continuously sharpen the knifeSharpening with stealthYou seeBut we never get round to cuttingCutting ourselvesFreeWe always have something pressingPressing downRelentlesslyHolding the knife to the lightHoping we hopeHonestlyHow else can we be caged like parrotSongless parrotUnfree

I walked along the yellow blue beachand up Asc na Greine; to Col-bheinn I climbed.The sun over Tubairnaich cast a wee shadow,it’s tilting to Smeòrail told me the time:‘twas time for a dram from our clan-crested flask(our uisge beatha can clear up our minds).I gave thanks to our Prince with words from Culloden:“tis grand we … Read more

Did they eye-up the tree of lifeWhet their axes and take their aimvirgos-intactum upon their knivesAs they dined-out on Bread of Shame The starving still seek food banksWhilst these pinstripes fiddle covid grantsBlood-axes sharpened their blades well-whetSo all our babies will pay their debts

My bitch is in heatStrange hounds at the doorShe was my angelNow she’s a whore She struts like a strumpetHer ears cocked on-highManically sniffing forHer kind of guy My bitch is in heatHer anatomy’s changedWhen she sees a studShe becomes quite deranged She whines in the morningAnd howls through the nightHer puppy-dog eyes sayI want … Read more

If I live to seventy then there’sthree thousandsix hundredand fifty of these …blues days after Sundays afterweekends gone by. Too many lost to history andsentiments andnew beginnings as I liefearingthe week ahead that is a giftif I can survivethe nonsense in my headbecause of what Boomtown said:“I don’t like Mondays” or“better off dead”. The better … Read more

Dear Ms Murrell, how doth it feelto rule us with science thus rule with a rod?Art thou beguiled by us living foreverdefying Mother Nature, thus playing God? Reflective first thought humankind madesometime around the Neòlithic AgeFor year after year we lived and defiedWe knew nought of viruses or how we died In this 21st century … Read more

Sail low little mockingbird Sing slow for us Sing happy not mournful As we turn to dust Out in the cotton fields nobody knows where in the Hell the prairie winds blow Mockingbird sing of a love Nature sows a doom we each share where the buffaloes low Out on the levees with the bone-dry … Read more

This morning I am much displeased:our lockdown civil servants’ eased.By-the-loch I tread-in human shit.So that heralds-in the end of this. The Highlands is filling-up with scammersand litter louts and wild campers.Our northern paradise disordered:apparently, we don’t have a border. So now and here these poems must end.The Light commandeth: do not offend!Being Highland I must … Read more