This week’s poems, from the 2017 shortlist for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for Poetry Pamphlets, continues with two sharply observed Edinburgh cameos by Stewart Conn in Against the Light (Mariscat Press, £6).
ICE MAIDEN
In winter she really
comes into her own,
the New Town grey
under a watery sun,
~
its whinstone setts
ghosting broughams
and sedan chairs, silk
dresses swishing;
~
the Old Town, once
haunt of cut-purses
and men of letters,
today’s imbalance
~
more east-windy
west-endy than ever.
Formerly a prim spinster
then dowdy dowager
~
now part princess,
part hen-party hostess,
at heart she possesses
a sliver of ice. . .
DAVID HUME
He sits slouched, his incongruous toga
no protection against incessant rain, downcast
eyes glazed, oblivious of the tourists jostling
to take selfies or queuing to rub his lustrous
big toe, before receding to a safe distance
from which they remain on the qui vive, like those
who skulked for nights after his Calton burial
to see if the Devil would come to claim his soul.
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