Scotland

All hail to the Rev. George Gilfillan of Dundee,
He is the greatest preacher I did ever hear or see.
He is a man of genius bright,
And in him his congregation does delight,
Because they find him to be honest and plain,
Affable in temper, and seldom known to complain.
He preaches in a plain straightforward way,
The people flock to hear him night and day,
And hundreds from the doors are often turn’ d away,
Because he is the greatest preacher of the present day.
He has written the life of Sir Walter Scott,

Greenland’ s icy mountains are fascinating and grand,
And wondrously created by the Almighty’ s command;
And the works of the Almighty there’ s few can understand:
Who knows but it might be a part of Fairyland?

Because there are churches of ice, and houses glittering like glass,
And for scenic grandeur there’ s nothing can it surpass,
Besides there’ s monuments and spires, also ruins,
Which serve for a safe retreat from the wild bruins.

Oh mighty City of New York! you are wonderful to behold,
Your buildings are magnificent, the truth be it told,
They were the only thing that seemed to arrest my eye,
Because many of them are thirteen storeys high.

And as for Central Park, it is lovely to be seen,
Especially in the summer season when its shrubberies and trees are green;
And the Burns’ statue is there to be seen,
Surrounded by trees, on the beautiful sward so green;
Also Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott,
Which by Englishmen and Scotchmen will ne’ er be forgot.

On the Gilfillan burial day,
In the Hill o’ Balgay,
It was a most solemn sight to see,
Not fewer than thirty thousand people assembled in Dundee,
All watching the funeral procession of Gilfillan that day,
That death had suddenly taken away,
And was going to be buried in the Hill o’ Balgay.

There were about three thousand people in the procession alone,
And many were shedding tears, and several did moan,
And their bosoms heaved with pain,
Because they knew they would never look upon his like again.

’ Twas in the month of December, and in the year 1883,
That a monster whale came to Dundee,
Resolved for a few days to sport and play,
And devour the small fishes in the silvery Tay.

So the monster whale did sport and play
Among the innocent little fishes in the beautiful Tay,
Until he was seen by some men one day,
And they resolved to catch him without delay.

There is no escaping the storm of roses
crisscrossed on the split-cracked wall
of a dead fountain arch.
There is no escaping their uterine balls,
expanding as a reminder of the children I never had.
If you listen carefully you can hear the vibrations,
the heart drone of their petal jaw-harps.
And there’ s no going back,
no indiscovery of Mars
or these red planets brooding before me,
light predators, sun-hatched
and bloodening like the fists of women
who have gone to war.

It is always the same:
she is standing over me

in the forest clearing,
a dab of blood on her cheek

from a rabbit or a deer.
I am aware of nothing

but my mutinous flesh,
and the traps of desire

sent to test it —
her bare arms, bare

shoulders, her loosened hair,
the hard, high breasts,

and under a belt
of knives and fish-lures,

her undressed wound.
Every night the same:

the slashed fetlock,
the buckling under;

I wake in her body
broken, like a gun.

An inch from the curse and pearled
by the evening heat I shake
my polo neck and a cool draught
buffs my chest. What rises is
my animal aroma the scent
of blue-ribbon stockthe sort
a starred chef would ladle from
a zinc-bottomed pan to soften
and savor the hock he has sawn
and roasted for the diners out front

Aulder than mammoth or than mastodon
Deep i’ the herts o’ a’ men lurk scaut-heid
Skrymmorie monsters few daur look upon.
Brides sometimes catch their wild een, scansin’ reid,
Beekin’ abune the herts they thocht to lo’ e
And horror-stricken ken that i’ themselves
A like beast stan’ s, and lookin’ love thro’ and thro’

All is lithogenesis — or lochia,
Carpolite fruit of the forbidden tree,
Stones blacker than any in the Caaba,
Cream-coloured caen-stone, chatoyant pieces,
Celadon and corbeau, bistre and beige,
Glaucous, hoar, enfouldered, cyathiform,
Making mere faculae of the sun and moon,
I study you glout and gloss, but have
No cadrans to adjust you with, and turn again