A Wee Guest Poem: Gordon Urquhart

Infrastructure

Back of Munlochy, in the testing winter of 2010.
Cracks, frost widened, like dead pigeons under pines
became potholes, aggravated by thaw and Spring drivers, warm in fourbys.
Rattling the tarmac, tutting in the knowledge that repair would come.

In Nyimba, on the Great East Road, they make do.
Descendents of trappers, they cover hollows with sticks and leaves.
Hedge fund managers.
Buses swerve; slowing down sometimes, toppling others,
Asphalt margins crumbling into sand, narrowing daily.

The elephants are gone,
and the luxury coaches and infrequent lorries,
are fast and inedible.

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Gordon Urquhart is a Scoattish Heelander living in Zambia, where his short attention span attracts less attention. He likes making wee films about animals, portmanteau electronic music, his children, Inverness Caley Thistle, history and the bittersweet prospect of the death of capitalism. Though she gets irritated by his sarcasm, he loves his wife. He thinks he isn't nearly sarcastic enough.