ARIADNE ON BROUGHTY FERRY BEACH

(This plate has recently been displaced by sea defense restructuring work )



ARIADNE ON BROUGHTY FERRY BEACH  

W. N. Herbert

                 
Ariadne sleeping in the stomach of the strand
curled in her turtleshell of purple silk
surrounded by declivities, the left hollows
of youths and maidens, the close dip that was
her lord, the sandstuck embers that perfumed
the dark she’s dreaming in, that sticky net,
curled like a coracle on
the shipabandoned bay.
Something like a beak
is wakening in her upper jaw, the skin grins back,
something like a hairy branch is stabbing from
her ribs, her belly bloats and blotches like
a drowned dog, a starving child;
tarred and caulked, blackening her dreamy flesh
rolls little, crackling legs and spitting hairs
quivering, airpained; her lids balloon
as eyes split into eyes split into eyes.
The vine
of metamorphosis has taken her,
the divine tree grows in her and out of her
as Dionysus smiles and wipes his chin, stirring
the silk with a tipsy foot, leaving her
to wake to her desertion
to the reflective lap of waters.

PLATE NO LONGER VISIBLE
Description: Glued to a large sea defence boulder on beach opposite the newly constructed flats

Geotag co-ords: 56.467434, -2.856530
Date: 10.04.14

DEATH OF A COMIC ARTIST

DEATH OF A COMIC ARTIST
C. B Donald

They find his final strip still incomplete

with deadlines on the table for this week;

pen still gripped in white-knuckled grasp,

slumped while drawing in a comic gasp.

A junior staffer imitates his hand

so only fans can spot the difference,

and they’re too young to understand

the effort they buy for their sixpence.

Readers giggle at those last hi-jinks:

the desperate closing moments of his Dan.

They never quite discern that his last words

are filled in by another, lesser, man.

It doesn’t bother eager readers,

torches beneath midnight sheets,

that the ink is still wet on his obituary.

Description: Attached to a grille at ground level next to a seat in the Howf cemetery beside a cracked and foul smelling downpipe.
Geotag co-ords: 56.462026, -2.972386

Date: 08.04.14

HAIKU FOR THE LAW (poem now removed)

HAIKU FOR THE LAW  (POEM REMOVED SEE COMMENTS BELOW) 

David Fyans

Description: Pinned to the back of the wooden sign on the Law Road next to allotments.
Geotag co-ords: 56.469240, -2.988250

Date: 08.04.14

PIONEER

PIONEER

Don Paterson                    

It’s here I would have come to pass away

the final hour before the boat’s departure;

the bluff side of the Law, between the harbour

and the dark, cetacean barrow of Balgay.

Twin trains of headlights inched across the river-

the homebound day-shift - trail-blazing cars\like angels on the starry escalator

of the bridge’s tapering, foreshortened spar.

I tried to see it as a burning lance

angling for the slicked, black shoals of Fife

or a bowsprit, swung and steeved against the south

to help ride out her hellish afterlife:

the stubborn, rammish sap still on my hands,

the taste of her, like a coin laid in my mouth.







Description: Screwed to a broken tree stump atop an overgrown hillock at the side of Dudhope Garden Steps. Geotag co-ords: 56.464980, -2.991526
Date: 08.04.14

NUDE SPOONS

(Update: original poem removed by someone, 
now replaced by new one pinned to the back of the bench)

NUDE SPOONS

Billy MacKenzie

I wrote a note and dug it underground

I dug it underground

I found a tool to scrape away the soil

I found a wooden soil

It lies there canistered for future reference

It lies there canistered

It lies there canistered for future reference

It lies there canistered with nude spoons euphoria

I found a coin and washed away the silt

I found a shiny coin

A coin whose head was slightly to the tilt

Who'd leave it there in there in silt

It skimmed itself into the silvery Tay

Deep into the Tay

It's aging happening silvery in the Tay

Is it still there today with nude spoons euphoria?

It lies there with nude spoons euphoria

Just forget about it

Just forget about it

Just forget about

Nude spoons euphoria

Nude spoons euphoria

Nude spoons euphoria

I'm glad I had this vital heart attack

It clears psoriasis

I'm glad I had this vital heart attack

It makes me want to...

Wrote a note and dug it underground

I dug it underground

I found a tool to scrape away the soil

I found a wooden soil

It lies there canistered for future reference

It lies there canistered 
It lies there canistered for future reference

Description: Pinned to the back of a bench near the beginning of the 'McGonagall Poetry Walk' on Riverside Drive, part of the Green Circular cycle route.
Geotag co-ords: 56.451740, -2.986321
Date: 08.04.14

ETCHING OF A LINE OF TREES

ETCHING OF A LINE OF TREES

i.m. John Goodfellow Glenday

John Glenday

I carved out the careful absence of a hill and a hill grew.

I cut away the fabric of the trees

and the trees stood shivering in the darkness.

When I had burned off the last syllables of wind,

a fresh wind rose and lingered.

But because I could not bring myself

to remove you from that hill,

you are no longer there. How wonderful it is

that neither of us managed to survive

when it was love that surely pulled the burr

and love that gnawed its own shape from the burnished air

and love that shaped that absent wind against a tree?

Some shadow’s hands moved with my hands

and everything I touched was turned to darkness

and everything I could not touch was light.

Description: Attached to the back of a bench on Magdalen Green near railway lines facing the bandstand.

Geotag co-ordinates: 56.452718, -2.995067

Date of placement : 08.04.14