After a long time
of bare concrete and branches
the sun’s touch quickens
my cold eye
to the proud blue bloom
of an artificial flower
on a chemo-barren skull
to the tree of a man
bowed
under one budding son and
bound groundwards
by the bramble arms
of another
to the beautiful saxophonist
murdering jazz
and the freak shufflestepping
beside him
it would take Howson
to arrest their solid forms
I can only hope
to root this wee miracle
in the mind of another:
Spring has come to my gaze again.
Published in Tip Tap Flat: a view of Glasgow (Freight Books, 2012)
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About Pedalling Poetry
Writer Ellen McAteer is founder of Tell It Slant poetry bookshop in Glasgow, General Manager at Poetry London magazine. She was a visiting lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art, and a mentee of the Clydebuilt Verse Apprenticeship Scheme, under Alexander Hutchison, and a singer with the band Stone Tape, as well as a solo singer who won a BBC Radio competition with her song Blue Valentine. She was Director of the Poetry Trust, which ran the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, a director of the Scottish Writers’ Centre, a visiting lecturer at Oxford University's MSt in creative writing, and a member of the core group of performers at the Hammer and Tongue spoken word collective in Oxford. She is a qualified Librarian.
Ellen McAteer 