Issue 32: Taylor Strickland

Google Street View of The Moulin Inn

for A.B. Jackson

i

      walk without walking

past flowery window boxes, white quaint

the very inn i’m staying in

              i’m staying in

              hungover, hardened to naïve discovery

though scrolling,

              strolling through what

lingering curiosity

there is:

               laggy Caisteal Dubh,

‘black castle’ to the Black Death,

it’s said, gnaws

as the field’s jaw

on pixelated air,

               then dozens of hut circles

half-visible behind the inn,

              the Bronze Age

written in ruin

              & JavaScript.

i

              yawn.

morning, Maoilinn.  

Moulin online. name

anglicized, kirk empty

& goddamn

my headache,

last night’s many

last drams

              was it

or this greyest hour

my laptop

like daybreak

emblazons – a blue-light 

chiaroscuro, pegman

dragged over, 

dropped.

i

want to know.

i want to know i know

              ancient attachment

but i don’t.

i won’t online –

malaise embrace

today is tomorrow’s stitched imagery,

              the world borrowed,

              the word ‘barrow’

in immram-ish immersive panorama

defines but no more denotes

the neutered pig, the cart

for translating

the pig,

              sacrificial slaughter 

              beside yon swineherd  

under the hill,

                     all non-

fungible

i

              read of village trees

                           lost. the hollowing ash

              to which rogues lashed

                           by joug

cried out unrecognized – under crown expansion

the kirkyard

               darkened to shadow,

but not enough.

who would comprehend

such sunstruck lens flare this far into Perthshire,

              among muck

American-me masquerading

community concern

              without/outwith

communion, but I master sharing drams

or how to blether consolably

about matters

most important,

              e.g. the skyrocketing rise

in bird deaths due to wind

turbines, a recent tweet

               where JK Rowling herself

               rebrands herself

Just Kidding,

              performative truce at its tweetiest,

i don’t give a damn,

an undiagnosed Diogenes syndrome sees me

              shouldering trash

from the A9 verge, performative environmentalism

              is even worse

              on holiday, one holy day

                          (Hallowmas)

                     collar hammered round my neck,

                     i call momma

for her birthday, tell her

happy birthday, i’m learning

attachment but

              she hears

              only noise a

              garbled voice

i

              break up

              when all fickle

connectivity dies

with the laptop battery

              does it matter?

              this village,

a conservation village,

               lacks full-time

              villagers.

whole worlds will

turn black &

              the ash

like hope turned

to fash rings out

               in rings. 

outside i ask

someone sweeping

what happened.

              dangerously close

overhead power lines,

so say the council. well

i say the council

              should cut

              the power lines

next time!

Inchewan Burn

Autumn in

Macbeth’s wood

leaf by bloody leaf

blots the proud bough

flexing still

its full sleeves

of green

while toppled wall

alive & animal

beneath my palm

wears ancient

strength like

a skin

that greens

proving even

the toughest stone

bruises Cha

chuimhne leam

am briathran

I remember

not their words

but water

tearing down

down the brae

& down down

the dwindling day

as march burn

to myth

turns &

white water

to white noise

neutralizes my century

like rival tongues

drowned out

by the A9

* Cha chuimhne leam am briathran – Gàidhlig, meaning ‘I do not remember their words’; adapts Sorley MacLean’s Cha chuimhne leam do bhriathran, meaning ‘I do not remember your words’ and comes from his poem ‘Allt Arais’

Taylor Strickland is the author of Dastram/Delirium, winner of the 2023 Saltire Prize for Scottish Poetry Book of the Year, and a PBS Translation Choice. His work has appeared in various outlets, such as the TLS, New Statesman, The Scotsman, Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest (US), and Poetry Wales, among others. He lives in Glasgow with his wife, Lauren, and daughter, Eimhir.

Copyright © 2024 by Taylor Strickland, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author