{a poem for Remembrance Sunday}

We were the shield-wall, here at the barrow’s edge

The first wave the enemy met, and broke on:

They buried us, when we had fallen, in

Earth, always the warrior’s last billet. When and

Where we had fallen. Sword, spear and shield

We held in death, as we had done in life –

Sword pommel still gripped in bony fingers.

Still ready, side ...

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Now that at dusk, the doors of the dimensions,

Glowing, are growing more thin and transparent

Like the seeds of Honesty, or Japanese screens,

I sometimes see, slightly by glancing, not looking,

Silhouettes of shadows, shades more real, more solid

Than those which feeble sunlight makes wane weakly

Here on earth.

These, seen only with the mind’s eye, lie outside the frame

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The days of feasting and hunting seemed unending:
The seasons passed: the hart in the woods bred
And reared its young year on year,
We ran after them, the spear sang a song
of whistling death. We joyed.

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At swim, two swans in the bay,

Under the mountains’ shadow

Where the buoy-moored boats

Bob to the tide’s rhythm,

The glinting waves’ glissando

And the wind’s insistence.

Then behind, stands of pines rise

In rows up the hill, dark marching soldiers

Until they yield the bare flanks of Goatfell

And the skyline’s crazy crags,

Last whittled by icebergs

There a...

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Clouds lie low down on the Sound

Today, cold blue silk, under a sea-fret,

The Mull of Galloway to the Mull of Kintyre,

Including the Firth of Clyde and the North Channel,

All tufted with white horses:

North-easterly, five at first, backing to three later

And the bent white wing of a wheeling gannet

Is stark against the dark hills of Kintyre.

This is the wind-road, this...

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The bees are busy, harvesting amongst the sea-purslaine

Despite being too heavy to fly, they drone,

Resisting force that pulls them back to earth,

Moving like monks on a mission, disciplined in work

A waggle-dance ensuring no omission:

Taking pollen again and again, drowsy and rotund,

Perhaps they sense that time may be short;

The quatrefoil flowers opening, their advent ...

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Now called The Staring Owl, it can be found on FACEBOOK at www.facebook.com/thestaringowl

The old blog, Bard Mousse, will not be maintained, because Blogger (ie Google) no longer supports the use of @ntlworld email addresses and Virgin, who are now owners of @ntlworld, don't give a stuff about sorting it out, and none of their proferred solutions works. The archive pages for Bard Mousse are all...

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Me, good dog, he often told me,

Warm voice, smell of tweed and leather

Warm voice: good dog, dog treat?

I look in his eyes, his brown eyes

See love for a good dog.

Yes, good dog.

Me like the mountains, clear clean air

Carries the echo of my barking, bark, bark, bark;

Cool streams to lap from, forests, walks,

A bouquet of pine-smells and almonds, sweet.

Me ha...

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