Under Silver Stars
As we lay still one night
Drawing our breath in shallow draughts
We watched the silver blue corn sway
Silken in the quiet moonlight
Running like slowly falling arrows
In that sloping field
Down to the riverside
In a moon-wind-blown tide
Behind us, a broken pathway
Wandering cracks in a shining sea
To where, pleasure taken,
Our tender stain lay amid the seed
Of wild strawberries and grain
Until the drowsy drizzling dawn
When poppies turn back to red
They never call it dead of night,
These lovers,
Breathless from living
Still, silent and spent
It being too long
And passing too slowly for them
This time of gathering souls
When, at our lowest ebb
This hard, deep line of darkness falls upon us
As it creeps the world like a scythe
In torch-lit procession
We walk by river
Intrude upon its gloom
And ripple its ever-present twilight
A pewter veil flowing
Into a molten heart
Beating this water
Against a turning world
To regain its balance
In a futile search for equilibrium
Pouring silver over moonstone
Seen through a flame
Lit by embers and bark
Something caught in amber
Something dead but held forever
Rippling in the dark
In the mystery of circles
They are endless,
Infinite
And relentless
Love and death
Walk in circles
Silver rings, moonlight, halos,
Rippling stars in perpetual orbit
Broken lights map our heaven
Like seed between wild darkness
Where imagination dreams and fears
Appear and disappear
In silver, red and black
We repeat words
Before we close our eyes
To keep us safe
From seed to scythe...
At worst this night is only dark
And darkness only silent
And if in silence there's nothing to fear
Then listening doesn't explain
Why tonight is so unbearable
Sleep is but a little death
Given a warm hand
and a low breath
These lovers will not sleep
Nor part under this flag of love
Banded black, silver and red
Their sea silver blue
Their land moonlit silver
Awash with the black flowers of the moon
And the estuary,
A spoon dipped in salt,
Clings to the long and low-lying sand
Where gulls and lost ships cry
For land and the years beyond their reach
Where a weak attraction draws them closer
Since there is no other power
To turn them away from home
This is the old tide
Washed up and as wide as moonlight
This is the pathway
And the orbit we hold
The sweep of the scythe and the poppy field
Ripples chasing whispers in the gossiping grass
The silver blue corn bowing
As a shadow and life pass by
© Tom Fairnie winter 2005
Becoming Eternal
It’s October and colder
the years are another year older
this fundamental love,
becoming eternal.
romantic, wild and unafraid,
autumn leaving summer
facing winter
bright and shadowless
like a full moon
late in a dark October sky,
like passionate lovers dressing afterwards
in a moonlit room
their love surrounded by that light
clear and bright and becoming eternal
© Tom Fairnie winter 1976
Man Wis Made Tae Girn
Ah wis made in Scotland like maist o’ youse
From McGowans toffee and penny chews
And if ye are what ye eat then ah canny hide
Ahm mainly lorne sausage and Mothers Pride
But it would be a sin an ah’d wish masel died
If you thought a wisna a true scot but jist a half-breid
© Tom Fairnie summer 2004
Remembering Venice
remembering Venice
is like remembering love
that opaque city
remembered
unrendered,
without form,
is lost in waves and beauty
yet it stays with you
like a constant
heartbeat
remembering venice
is like remembering rain
surrounding you
making you just another part
of something vast and falling…
like love
Do you remember the rain in venice?
Do you remember running into its heart
and being swept along in its beating?
© Tom Fairnie autumn 1997
In Every Expectant Moment
In every expectant moment
before I see you
I rehearse the words
like a humble man struggling with a good deed
like a vain man with his last look
I’m swallowed up in the waiting
Sometimes it’s just too profound a feeling
of anticipation
it becomes an undertow and threatens my balance,
my equilibrium
I’m waiting at this very moment
waiting as I write
and waiting as you read
waiting through every long expectant moment
until I see you
and then I know what takes my breath away.
It’s not the undertow,
not the falling in
nor the fear of falling out,
it’s seeing you
just seeing you.
© Tom Fairnie winter 1976
The Flood
Like any other ocean
This one has it's end
It ends in God's mouth
As a word he once used
All this was a mistake
All this torturously deep dark waste of water
Below the light
A mistake.
A slip of God's tongue.
© Tom Fairnie spring 2000
One Night While You Were Sleeping
One night while you were sleeping
I kissed your love awake
And held you tight
In the grip of love
In a hold no one could break
And in the time between us kissing first
And kissing a last goodnight
We held and touched
And embraced it all
All the love in the world that night.
© Tom Fairnie winter 1978
The Door-to-door Campaigner
Her politics were transparent
She had a mandate
To raise a man’s opinion
Of her liberal ways
I was her primary target
The floating voter
She wished to swing
From right to left
She held my gaze
With her manifesto
And her persuasive sway
She was somewhat left of centre
Like a misplaced cross
Spoiling my paper
One more deposit lost
Swept along on her tide of promises
I had given her my vote
Then she was gone
Like a straw poll in the wind
And I, cast adrift,
No longer undecided
Now committed to her list
© Tom Fairnie winter 2004
Bed-knobs And Bonfires
We used to burn our old mattresses
on ritual bonfires in the back green
Lying like foundation stones
somewhere in-between
Sweet Williams and Pee the Beds
The fragrant and the unclean
As we collected from the neighbours
it would build, and every day keep gaining
Wardrobes full of woodworm
and beds full of staining
Until it stood; a temple to Morpheus
and inadequate toilet training
Like an anti-Antiques Roadshow
of wet beds and household debris
Given a Viking funeral
that fired our imagination and we
fought like Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis
Fencing with chair legs over some wee Janet Leigh
But no matter how much was cremated
consigned to the flames
There amongst the ashes like petrified snakes
the bedsprings remained
As hard as pawnbroker’s balls
A symbol of poverty, guilt and shame
We were always having bonfires
and playing with matches
Life was a fascinating combination
of combustible material and damp patches
The endless struggle between light and dark
Fiery-headed Rita and the black shirted fascists
It was one long night
of fireworks, fire-cans and come in for your tea
Lit by the smiling face
of a candle in a tumshie
and a tattie in the dying embers
was a funeral feast for free
Turning like Saint Catherine’s wheel
Burning like Saint Joan
We lit a volcano to Vulcan
and worshipped at Pele’s fiery throne
With gunpowder from China and candles from Rome
We had a pyromythology all of our own
It’s a wonder I survived at all
Through that baptism of fire
A miner’s son forged in the flames
of his father’s desire
and my mother’s burning passion
Which he’d light and then retire...(to bed)
But through all those flaming years
Through every flicker and twist
Burning down the days
the memories persist
of how I always wanted to be a fireman
I just grew up an arsonist.
© Tom Fairnie 2001
Billy Bones
Wi shooders like braes
Under a craggy face
A nose like an avalanche
And a St Bernard’s jowls
He had the look o’ a man
Wi his ain gravitational pull
Draggin’ him doon and roond
In a millstane whirl
As quick as sand
grinding porridge
He wis weather beaten, brow beaten
Half eaten, dog eared and seik
Lookin’ like he’d jist been pulled
Fae a natural disaster
His dishelved claes
wur like charity shop chic
Only they wurnie
He’d goat himself kicked oot
o’ The Central Bar
For bein’ fu’ and causin’ a draft
in its warm hert
wi' his cauld bones
He was in the mood for one last pint
and thought o' the beckoning arms
o’ The Guildford’s revolving door;
The welcoming push on yur back
That throws ye intae the room
but it was so far up Leith Walk
and he was so far doon.
Now the Water o’ Leith
Stirred like a lager foam wreath
beneath him
The silkie and the kraken
And the polis sirens
Beckoned like Ahab
Legless and determined to have a bit o’ fish
His prediliction wis to gloom
If he wis a game he’d be Doom
or something in a tomb
bit withoot the runnin aroond
His favourite jaikit wis a stolen burberry
And as he contemplated this final act
Cauld and wet
He wondered if it wis better
To burn or to bury
Either way
They’d hiv tae tumble him dry first
Tho’ it widnae really matter tae him
He’d be in nae hurry
And Leith had no Dominion
Jist an auld Eldorado
But he was gled tae dae it there
fur one thing that cheered him
wis thinkin’ that if he wis in Sidney
he’d be spinning anticlockwise
which didnae sound sae guid
And wid make ye think
that death might hiv its ain time and place
But he had a droonin’ man’s sense o’ direction
A drunk man’s grace
And a senseless man’s weel lived oot face
And at the last
He thought he could taste
vinegar and salt
In a mix of holy symbols
The Water o’ Leith
his thrown-in chips
and Grimbles
© Tom Fairnie summer 2005
Christmas Present
A gave masel’ a present...
An’ switched oan the other bar
An’ poured masel’ a double
O’ another man’s Vladivar
No one else would buy a gift
Or drink tae this auld miser’s health
So a just return the favour
An’ keep aw theirs tae masel’
I unwrap what a would have given,
A save the ribbon and the paper,
Fur last night’s news
Is something ye should savour
Revealing coins in pearls o’ wisdom
That shine like yon Eastern star
A’m fair lavish wi ma gifts
When a ken there no gaun far
But the yin I love the best
The yin a leave tae last
Is ma bank book fu o’ numbers
The sums o’ aw ma past
An’ wi every year that passes
It flatters to deceive
For a seem tae get mair than twice the pleasure
As a give and receive
An’ every year there’s mair
Ma generosity knows no bounds
aw that money I have’nae spent
Ach well, it’s the thoucht that counts
© Tom Fairnie 2003
What It Is
No one is black
And no one is white
Save an albino
And an albino at night
A nose isn’t Roman
And it isn’t a Jew’s
You take what you get
You can’t pick and choose
Dirt isn’t different
Because of a map
And territorial waters
Tend to overlap
So let’s not be pedants
It’s only a name
Be it bigot or xenophobe
We’re all just the same
© Tom Fairnie 2005
