Thursday 31 July 2014

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 


Wednesday 2 July 2014

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


Friday 27 June 2014

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

Thursday 26 June 2014

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



Friday 20 June 2014

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