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From a series of photographs for Dighty poetry group taken yesterday. A big thankyou for everyone’s patience. An anthology of the poets work will be published shortly. Here is my contribution which came about from a particular walk a winter morning last year, when I came across an airman’s type jacket frozen to a wire fence, and a torn up Christmas card which read ‘To Lisa and the wee man’. I had been reading about a German airman who had been captured and paraded through the town. He was apparently exceedingly tall. A friends Aunty told me that during the war her Dad had buried an old bread van in the garden as an air raid shelter for the family complete with bunkbeds. I was also investigating the circuses and travelling shows that would come to Dundee. This piece came from those beginnings.

 

Caravans.

 

On the edge of town

a bone black fineness of winter air

licks the salty rime at the lip of last tide.

Bridge pilings punctuate the slaked slip clay

sooking the river toward the sea.

The small terrace of brick houses,

backing up the hill,

tell stories to

soft morning rolls of babies, tucked up in the grocers van.

Wash day legs give up to floral loose covers,

peonies and roses.

 

Still.

 

Beyond stiffened boiler suits forgotten on the line,

the tackety boot lane opens out onto waste ground,

common grounds for

stories and secrets, promises and plans.

Ragwort,

bindweed,

nettles.

 

Waiting.

 

With quickening pinched toes, blue knees,

rattly grin,

that two day old bruise, deepening, darkening, at once,

now,

bring him,

laughing,

 

magicking,

birling, swirling, starry lights,

diesel, fried onions, burnt sugar.

 

All seven feet tall in his showmans breeks,

yelling scream if you wanna go

somewhere,

anywhere,

from here.

Head thrown back, blinking the colours away.

 

All seven feet tall with his brylcreemed hair.

Lamp black,

lunar black,

crow black.

The token he gave only good for a ride,

sorry ma wee lass.

 

Rest.

 

The gennies tut as they quietly cool,

bulbs dim.

The uncoupling of parts.

 

Early morning sees a nippit wind,

funnels the soor smell of your breath.

A whale back sky brings word from the north,

whips the clay slaked water as it heaves upstream,

on its way,

 

passing through.

 

 

 

First drawing for Wall projects exhibition in Montrose. Text from last weeks Montrose Review, January 28th, acrylic, gesso, charcoal and conte on paper.

 

I spent my first day in Montrose, wandering and sleuthing my way around. I surprised a sleeping shag on the beach, and asked the toilet attendant what is the best thing about Montrose ? It felt as if I had asked her a very personal question. The steeple she answered nervously.  I left thinking there must be more, and I walked and found interesting street names, dark, narrow closes off the High Street, the abandoned warehouses of a global trading port and a wonderful Victorian museum. These are some of their finds –

An ear bone of a Greenland whale, and Russian birch bark shoes. A man o’war ship made of bone, from French prisoners of war. A message in a bottle -‘We ate the dog, three men left alive, have mercy on our souls, Amen’.

Treasures.  I shall return, to draw .

 

 

 

 

Acrylic on paper.

Had my first accordion lesson last night, hmmm… its harder than it looks. The teacher is a man called Billy Anderson and he wears a waistcoat and  tweed jacket and looks and sounds like Ken Stott, the actor. Very patient and jolly with me. The rest of the group were very encouraging, so I will practice my scales, and my first tune, thankful for it not being ‘twinkle twinkle little star’, and I’ll be Jimmy Shand-ing before you can shout ‘Auchtermuchty’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charcoal, ink and gesso on brown paper.

Porcelain sky, a brittle cold. Fat waddled dogs, seagulls arc. Fishermen mending, all quiet by the sea.

 

 

 

 

Bright winter sun in the woods. Pencil drawing.

I sat in the Central Library Dundee today looking for things Montrose, to start my research into the town. I came across some year books from the early 1970’s. This is a snapshot –

Decimalisation means camp site fees are now 40p per tent. The Locarno Ballroom reinvents itself as The Four Seasons a la Sunset Strip. The tobacconists advert runs with the line – “The man who smokes thinks like a Sage and acts like a Samaritan”. ‘In style’ fashions for your jeans, cords and cheesecloths, and you might like to saunter down to the Corner House Hotel and the Zanzi-bar lounge with its distinctive African decor.  Mrs. McAlpine runs a tape recording and hi-fi club. Miss Joan Butter is Montrose Rose Queen. Stereograms and Grundig tellies all available on the H.P. and Arbuthnotts for your lifeboat if all else fails.

 

 

 

Tannadice football ground , Dundee.

Mixed media on film poster ‘Insomnia’. 74 x 63 cm

In 1981 Dundee United played Monaco in a European cup match at Tannadice. According to Michael Marra, bard of Dundee, …. ‘Grace Kelly came to Tannadice with her man. She was wearing a white turban and that’s unusual in Dundee……Unfortunately she was sitting behind an advertising hoarding for Taylor Bros. Coal. It was what we called incongruous’.

Ink drawing oak tree. Met a man from the village whose jack russell dog liked to climb the trees to play with the squirrels. He said the dog could only get so high and the squirrels would throw things down at him.

 

Snow and bass rock. Watercolour and acrylic on wood.30cm x 20cm.