Tuesday 7 August 2012

Fringe Month - Garry Stanton


Greyfriars

Damp earth, patchy
late year grass.
Cold dust below.
Somewhere, from brittle branches,
black eyes
stare down.

The crypts
of the rich line
the walls. But I can, still,
deep inside, hear the cries
of the poor, outside the
kirkyard gates,
where they have always been.

Metal covers graves,
to deter
the resurrection men.
All around,
blossom rots in the bosom of
moist brown
death.

The aura of autumn
is all around,
erotic
in its
cool warm aromas, and
olfactory echoes of
burnt things.
It is in the breeze.
It is in the lichened walls,
and it sits on the faces of lunch-break
workers, like the abstract future.

You can detect the plague,
even now,
lingering in Greyfriars.
You can taste
the pain
of Covenanters, their gate
padlocked now, and forever.

Nettles nestle
in green,
resting against
the Flodden wall,
long breached, as
November
creeps in, 
wearing a long dark
overcoat.



wearing a long, dark overcoat.

*     *     *

A native of Edinburgh, Garry has always been a creative soul, from co-writing Fringe shows to supplying songs for the official Hibernian FC cd back in '98. He has released an album online, has had poetry published and has in the last two years written two novels which remain as yet unpublished. A mature graduate from the University of St Andrews, he now lives in Fife and has two sons.
 


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