Shieling

West wind comes like a ghost,
Summer a mere presence.
Winding roads fade into the hillsides
Where, barefoot, we wander,
Turn skyward, skip the burns,
Scatter in the yellow of the glen,
Lie forgetful in grass-grown hollows.

Spacebar

Words are written now

Or, unwritten,

Left waiting in the recesses 

Of unordered thought.

The Stolen Poem

In a desk drawer, some words lay

In the dark and wooden dust.

Too many silent years stained

The brown-edged paper’s folds.

The smell of cheap pine lingered

Behind ill-fitting dovetails 

By whose feeble daylight

Meaning cast no shadow.

Terse Cogent Salient

Simeon Enfield made up his own coat of arms. Not given much to heraldry and certainly no toff, he just wanted to embody himself in something impressive, something symbolic. The world as it was dragged him down with the trappings of mediocrity and now he wanted, even as a secret only he would know, an exotic emblem.

Mr Whippy

I imagine the ice cream van passing me on the Inverness bypass is a cover operation: a front not as misleading as at first glance. Inside there are no chill vats of cheap vanilla ice, no vegetable-fat concoctions or fantasy ice lollies which promise more than they deliver. Instead of shelves of confections, humming freezers beneath racks of Askey’s cones and wafers, I picture the interior as a kind of BDSM parlour. Darkly lit with an arch dominatrix dressed in leather bodice with high-heel boots and a whip across her shoulder. At her feet, in his underpants, cowering and slightly salivating, a mild-mannered assistant bank manager.