JUTE MILL TURN OF THE CENTURY

DUNDEE JUTE MILL

TURN OF THE CENTURY

Hugh McMillan

They stand crucified by loom ribs and spindles,

these hemp women made from shadow,

with their skull heads doubled over machines

that worked, but not for them.

They present their misery unabashed,

unwilling to hide it,

unable to conjure, for a shutter second, smiles.

In the foreground there is a youth.

He is small

(The nearest women are bending to his height)

but there is more than a hint of swagger

in the watch chain,

the slightly bending knee,

the hand laid proprietorially on a spool of cloth.

He is a golden boy:

he shines even in this glory of sepia.

It is the way the world is:

and you know the women will die

near the looms,

their certainties the more enduring,

and that the boy’s chest will be torn

by machine guns,

all the puff and pride blown to smoke forever.

He will not live to see the skeleton of his mill

or hear the women, weeping still.

 

Description: Pinned to a wooden facing board on the Verdant Works Building.
Geotag co-ords: 56.461812, -2.983704
Date: 30.07.14 

MARY SHELLEY ON BROUGHTY FERRY BEACH

MARY SHELLEY ON BROUGHTY FERRY BEACH

Robert Crawford

One small boat tugs the enormous corpse inshore

Towards waiting locals. A lad opens up its mouth

And wades inside, clutching a flensing tool

For blubber. Piece by hacked off piece

Men deconstruct the outcast zeppelin body,

Carting lumps back to beachfront cottages -

Sturdy food and good oil for the winter.

Harpoons glint in the candlelight.

Safe home, the men of Broughty Ferry take

Their sweet uncorseted wifes to bed, or croon

Shanties to bairns beside toys made of teeth.

The Tay flows quiet. Dundee’s lights wink their yellow.

A sad girl walks from the beach, carefully picking

Her steps as she sneaks past a leftover eye

Flung on the sand, and other small last bits

Of monster littering the promenade.

Description: Pinned to a long wooden beam at the foot of a fence beside the Dundee Sailing Club building. A suitably gothic mansion can be seen on the rise in the background.
Geotag co-ords: 56.468369, -2.899381
Date: 1.07.14

DUNDEE

DUNDEE             (This plate has been removed for unknown reasons)

John Burnside

The streets are waiting for a snow

that never falls:

too close to the water,

too muffled in the afterwarmth of jute,

the houses on Roseangle

opt for miraculous frosts

and the feeling of space that comes

in the gleam of day

when you step outside for the milk

or the morning post

and it seems as if a closeness in the mind

had opened and flowered:

the corners sudden and tender, the light immense,

the one who stands here proven after all.

THIS PLATE NO LONGER IN PLACE.

Description: Pinned to a boarded up window on a disused building.

Geotag co-ords:56.455030, -2.983750

Date: 25.06.14

TAY BRIDGE NIGHT

TAY BRIDGE, NIGHT

Valerie Gillies

Our train and passengers spin at a height

above sea level, it bottles us

up at the launch of the night.

We grow momentous.

Across ravelling space

piers and girders link,

eyes shine outside, a face

on the blink.

Skeletons make no fuss

when they join arms with us.

If we look vain

they lead us in the train

of their steelbone embrace.

Combining at this point in space,

Strange couplings these:

Youth and joy, fear and disease.

We who are full

of life will fall.

The bony ones arrest

us, clasped to their gridiron chests,

as to the unexpected mate

we feel the pull and gravitate.

Description: Attached to a wire fence on the pavement near theapproach to the Tay Bridge.

Geotag co-ords:  56.451861, -2.988939

Date: 25.06.14

a love lock found near this location.

FOONDRY LANE

FOONDRY LANE   (someone has now painted over this plate)

Mary Brooksbank

There’s a Juter and a Battener

    Sailing up the Tay,

And a’ the wives in Foondry Lane

    Are singing blithe the day.

There’ll be pennies for the bairnies,

    A pint for JOck and Tam,

Money for the picters,

    The auld fowk get a dram.

We’ll gie the secks the go by,

    We canna sew and eat,

And fivepence for twenty-five

    Will no buy muckle meat.

We’ll hae steak and ingins frying,

    Lift oor claes a’oot the pawn,

We’ll gaither wulks and boil them

    In a corn beef can.

PLATE NOW PAINTED OVER

Description: Pinned to a wooden board in Foundry Lane just along from the Reading Rooms.

Geotag co-ords:  56.465018, -2.960866

Date: 25.06.14

MID-CRAIGIE

MID- CRAIGIE    

A.D. Foote

The trees they planted here six years ago

Failed to take root.

Instead, the ground sprouted

Aerosols, dog turds, cans and bottles.

The middle-aged, who still remember the slums

Now older, pass by, hunch-backed,

Looking for something on the ground,

Something of value they lost long ago,

Before these fields were built upon.

Only the ever-living children shout and leap

At their unending play,

Growing up in a different world.

 

Description: Stuck to a brick buttress in an alley at the back of the HappyHillock Shopping Centre.

Geotag co-ords:  56.481757, -2.929573

Date: 20.06.14

DUNDEE

DUNDEE       (This plate has been removed by someone)

Dawn Wood

The Dichty Burn, his backbone

through Dronely above Baldovan-

mills along it and threats

of drowning cats, bad weans-

stretches past the seven arches

at Panmuirfield, to boil,

open-mouthed near Balmossie.

His horns, the Murroes and the Fithie,

Whitfield Burn, his tusk,

Dens Burn circles his Law Hill navel.

His claws, Lochee and the Scourin’ Burn,

erupt at Balgay to grab

for the Pleiades ladies

and the pearl moon;

his wings are at the ready,

the Gorrie and the Gelly,

come the equinox, he’ll rise;

trailing his tail feathers,

Liff and Fowlis,

from Benvie and the Swallow,

they’ll ruffle and settle tomorrow.

A belly full of nine maidens

from Pitempton, says

the old wives tale,

but stricken at Strathmartine.

Maybe a belly full of only rain

something of the city

to thunder in his mind

something of his mind,

tempted and draigled-

pours into brow and bone

of the city.

PLATE NOW REMOVED

Description: Pinned to a tree in a glade on a path alongside the Dighty at the back of Sainsbury's.

Geotag co-ords: 56.481217, -2.888924
Date: 20.06.14