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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
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