The Year of Not Sleeping (3)

Burns night tonight, I guess, and time to eat that minced sheep’s pluck thing (no seconds for me, thanks) and read and sing some Burns. He wasn’t a man to mince his words and here are a few unminced ones-

But pith and power, till my last hour,

  I’ll mak this declaration-

We’re bought and sold for English gold-

  Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

And this is from ‘The Kirk of Scotland’s Alarm‘ (he is addressing a poet called William Peebles)-

Poet Willie! Poet Willie, gie the Doctor a volley,

  Wi’ your ‘Liberty’s Chain’ and your wit;

O’er Pegasus’ side ye ne’er laid a stride,

  Ye but smelt, man, the place where he shit.

Poet Willie! Ye but smelt, man, the place where he shit.

There should definitely be a bit of this sort of stuff at any Burns Night celebration, but once you’ve washed the sheep’s pluck down with a few wee drams, you must have that loveliest of love poems John Anderson, My Jo–

Now we maun totter down, John,

  And hand in hand we’ll go,

And sleep thegither at the foot,

  John Anderson, my jo.

-And that loveliest of songs, Ae Fond Kiss–

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

Ae farewell, alas, for ever!

---

Since I started with food, I’ll end with it. I wrote this last September I think. It is not a true story.

Quail

Manna from Harrods, wrapped in grease paper,

Two quail, and only when I got them home

We realised they were whole, their heads on.

Now- the fishman will ask what you desire

To do with the heads, but the birdman obviously don’t.

He leaves you to your own devices.

—-

From memory, we weren’t sure of our devices,

Only our desires, and the question in our

Heads was what you’d call a bunch of questions,

So I guess we paused, and looked at what we’d got-

Quiet game birds, sort of en deshabille,

Dead to the world on our kitchen board.

—-

I loved you then (we shared our qualms)-

I often did on Friday evenings

With a glass in my hand and the quillpen

Put away. We pretended we were paying

Some respect to the dead, and sombrely.

Then I cut their heads off.

—-