Milla: Who’s the boss of Inky Fingers?
Mairi: Nobody’s the boss! We all make decisions together.
Milla: (very seriously) Does the Government know about you?

BIKE SLAM
June 17th, 7.30 – 11pm
Free

Oil your microphone, inflate your poetry and check the tension in your performance — Edinburgh Festival of Cycling and Inky Fingers are joining together to proudly present the world’s ever cycling-themed poetry slam! For one night only, breathless performance poets and oily-fingered newcomers will compete together in a pedal to the finish. Expect poems on wheels, greased verse, SPOKEn word, terrible puns, and no lycra whatsoever (probably). Come to watch, come to vote on the acts, come to compete, come to enjoy yourself — the bike slam is open to all. Email inkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com for more details, the full rules, or to sign up to compete (slots limited).

On 15 February 2013, Jennifer Williams, SPL Programme Manager, and poet/author Tracey S. Rosenberg had a chat about that dreaded and unavoidable demon that every publishing writer must do battle with: rejection.  We hope this podcast will be of interest to all writers who have to deal with inevitable rejection, and especially to young and emerging writers who are starting down the challenging path towards publication.

Click to listen!

Inky Fingers presents… ‘WE ARE POETS’.
Tuesday 28th May, Doors open 7pm
The Banshee Labyrinth, Niddrie St
followed by free open mic!

WE ARE POETS swept the boards of international film festivals in 2011 and 2012, and Inky Fingers is delighted to bring this extraordinary film to Edinburgh audiences for one night only.

WE ARE POETS follows six young Leeds teenagers as they prepare for the world’s most prestigious poetry slam – Brave New Voices. From red bricked streets of Northern England to a stage in front of the White House, this is a moving and radical story of youth, art and freedom of expression. This independent film was 5 years in the making, and the film makers were allowed unprecedented access to the Brave New Voices slam world.

For one night only, this film will be shown in Edinburgh. Book tickets now, for £5 at http://wearepoetsedinburgh.eventbrite.co.uk or £6 on the door.

Screen International – ‘Uplifting, moving, amusing and thoroughly enjoyable…a great film – should be mandatory viewing.’

Winner Youth Jury Award, Sheffield Doc Fest 2011
Winner Best Documentary Award, Darklight Festival Dublin 2011
Winner Goethe Film Prize, Berlin Zebra Film Festival 2012
Winner Audience Award, Univerciné Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Guadalajara International Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Bradford International Film Festival 2012
Official selection, New Zealand Doc Edge Film Festival 2012
Gala Presentation, Leeds Young People’s Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Sottodiciotto Film Festival 2012

The screening will be followed by a wildcard Open Mic, running 9.30pm – 11.30pm! Come along, add your name to the hat before or after the film, take your chances for 5 mins on the Inky Fingers stage!

 When I first performed, I remember thinking I would need a whisky or two to get up and do this if I was prepared to be criticised for my offerings. It was not like that at all, in fact the audience couldn’t have been more encouraging. When I finally got to run away from the scene of my first ever slam poetry event my heart still beating fast with nerves and excitement. At one time I still preferred the 5 minute spots. My nerves couldn’t stand it! I stuck with it because I didn’t want to be unstuck from this amazing feeling of performing your own words.

I have been inspired so much over the last two years by so many people. The person that I nervously was changed and became more dramatic. That is because the words that I am expressing are mine. I edit them in my head, I own them. I listen and believe people when they tell me that they enjoy my poetry

RF.

READEASY WRITERS’ GROUP
Sunday 5th May, 2-5pm
The Forest, 141 Lauriston Pl, Edinburgh

Hello writers! Whether you are a poet, novelist, scriptwriter, or haven’t yet made up your mind, the Inky Fingers  Writers’ Group is for YOU. We meet to read and talk about each other’s work in a fun, safe, and constructive environment. It is a unique (and free) opportunity to get feedback, to experience new writing, and to hear your work read aloud: and best of all, it is anonymous, so you can feel completely at ease.

Every month a group of writers meets in a cosy café to discuss their work. Each member submits a piece of writing for the group, these are anonymised and printed out, everyone is given one piece to read, and then we take turns reading the piece aloud and giving feedback.

To attend for a session, just drop us an email at inkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com, with a piece of your writing attached. Any genre, and extracts are certainly allowed, but the limit is about 500 words, so that we’ve time to read them all. Also, please use  either .pdf, .odt or .doc (not .docx!) file formats.

Come along on the night, and we will read each piece aloud and chat about it. (Let us know if you’re not going to be able to attend, so that we can make your space available to someone else.) Bring a notepad and your wonderful mind!

Places are limited, so please send your email a few days in advance to make sure you get a space.

This is the final episode of the Inky Fingers Virtual Open Mic! We hope you’ve had a fantastic day, whichever day you’re enjoying it. Take care now.

* * *

Until Midnight, 21st April
Anonymous

So, I
was thinking of the second word to write when the first one came up out of the blue.
And so, the second word will tell you more about me than the first one as this one was not thought. No doubt that I is me and as me, it explains all what I or me are. This is an obviousness.

The length of the paper is the purpose of this writing and not the second word. I don´t want to talk about sex now either.
This length strikes me and defeates me many times. Even more than the second word. And although I face it and fight against it by changing the size of the page or of the letter it doesn´t work.
It seems to be a silliness but I find this a bit unfair. If I´m reading a text and one word is bigger, this word resounds in your mind longer as if the word was written as the same size as the rest of the text. Thus, it should count like two words or even three if we are talking about an insulting word. However, I have to admit that it is not convenient to abuse of this method.

I finish a paragraph, for example. Paragraphs keep space on a page which is good for the length. They are flexible. They have the merit of being as long as you want although I modestly consider that at least three lines are needed to make a paragraph respectable. Otherwise, we would be talking about isolated lines. This makes me think of the incomplete nature of lines which also makes me think of how many times a paragraph laughs at a line.
Lines might not only be jealous of paragraphs but also of words. Both of them make sense on their own, lines might think. How much I empathize with the loneliness of the line!

Then, the paragraph is finished. It is a six and half lines paragraph in which I have said exactly nothing decent when I re-read it. I cannot be proud of it although I am not entirely embarrassed.
How many times have I tried to write successfully nothing? Countless!
How many times have I tried to write successfully about nothing? You tell me, reader.

I have six and half lines. What to do with them?
I can mix them up in the writing so nobody will notice the nothing decent I´m saying, which makes me realise that the rest of the text should be actually decent and reminds me of the simplicity of my own thinking.

Trying to write different words and join them isn´t a solution either as the same words come to my mind all the time. I´d rather not think that I think as simple as I write because that would be a fatality but the simplicity of my thinking has already been proved.

I prefer to say that it is caused by the fact that “I don´t belong to English” as Pérez Firmat said. And this is another way to complete the page although paraphrasing is not what I want to talk about.
What I want to say is related to the length of the page, not about paraphrasing, not even about sex now.

If I wanted to write a book. Let´s say that I wanted to write a perfume book.
In that case, it would be easy. I would make sure that the ink of my pen is perfumed and the pages are made of petals. I would just be able to write it after a shower, in my lavender dress.
That book should be written during the summer. I need to be in front of an open window while a mild breeze is moving my hair. The breeze is dropping everything from the desk so not everything is perfect. That actually gets me in a bad mood. I make an effort to ignore that everything is on the floor since I need to write the book. But I can´t, so I tidy up everything quickly and I leave nothing on the desk, which explains a lot. I close the window.

I can easily write a book like this because the pages would be covered by drops of perfume and my perfumed pen would just describe the scents.
I would dedicate a chapter to tears in which I would need to explain why they taste salty or smell of ice.
The length wouldn´t be a problem since I could be writing about as many perfumes as I know. Depending on the perfume, some chapters could be refused but I wouldn´t mind. I would like to reflect the reality. Rabbish perfumes have also the right to be told.

There is a plus. The perfume book is reversible and when you think it is finished, the book starts again because there´s neither end nor beginning. It has a circular shape like cookery books.
Some pages would be wet and some dried.

The reader should close the eyes while reading the perfume book. This is the only way to understand the content. Just by smelling the letters should you be aware of what I would tell you on the page. So, put your nose close.
This book would have a cover made by the smell of my own blood to attract more readers.

I was once told that you will be reading what I will be writing and I´m thinking how to start.
So, I
will start like this.

* * *

Thatcher
Winston Plowes

All words and images collaged form the Independent, 9th April 2013. News and TV pages.

* * *

Bus Lore
Andrew Blair

Bus Lore

Bus Lore is a spoken tradition.

Every time you step on a bus, you are subject to bus lore. It is six thousand years old, but it is not important how this came to pass.

It is a series of told ways, rituals and rules that have ne’er been documented.

For example:

The sign that lights up and says ‘Stopping’ is not a reference to the bus, but to your beauty. The bus considers all its passengers so beautiful that it has to stop to properly appreciate their comeliness.

Or they could be dying. Depends. It’s a bit like Tarot. Y’know.

There is no evil on a bus, except the evil that a being brings on with them.

The front of the bus, they cannae sing.

The bits of God that are in the bus are also subject unto Bus Lore.

If you travel on every number of bus, you will achieve inner peace.

If someone sits on the flap of your coat – the one that has the pocket with your phone in it – then feels the vibration of a text message, and then turns to smile at you, you are bus married.

Bus marriage is only valid on buses, and polygamy is punishable.

You may divorce your bus spouse but only by approaching the driver and announcing in a strong, clear voice ‘It was not meant to be.’

He will pass your message on within ten working days.

Bus children are possible, but inadvisable, for they are subject to anomalies should anyone involved leave the bus at any time. Time is a mutable concept in bus lore. If anyone was to sit at a table in a bus they would experience temporal displacement, for these are time tables and they do not operate according to laws of the physical universe. Bus drivers themselves, keepers of the lore, do not see the world as we see it. If you were to stand forward of the little sign it is likely that the ensuing visions would drive you insane.

Murder is forbidden under Bus Lore.

* * *

catwalk down a tongue old albion
Sean Burn

* * *

Crop Circles
Callum Davies

Come now, state your business.
You there, curled curiously amongst my wilted seeders,
What have you to tell me?
The slashes across your neck smile and frown but they offer no answer.

How many sunsets have you slumbered here?
Dermis as dry as August fallow, tanned of grey and sorry blue.
A sad moon, your face, a dismal stain;
Impatient for decay as I am for the rains again, again…

How many sunrises is it now, I ask you.
I’ve tended the green, clocked the sandy yellow and once more the same,
Walking a daily step in search of nothing.
Bouncing my ball against God’s cheek, willing a dampened return.

You might wonder of the between.
The reprieve, the weekly scuttle to the peddling clutch.
The visits to town, more haunting than solitude
Their parchment tongues parceling out pleasant wads of empty air.

That’s it, that’s all there is.
The winder goes around again, scrape the mud off the plough,
White, green, browner, brown, grey, white.
I don’t know why you came here, there’s nothing to see.

What’s that?
Do I want more? I suppose, from tide to tide I pause to wonder
Of other worlds, warmer, colder.
But then the rope around my ankle tightens again and I remember…
Did I fill up the tractor?
Why am I asking you, you’re dead!
What’s the inverse? I wish I could remember.
If my head tips I can feel the pistons rattle, but that’s all.

I envy you,
Not where you are, but where you’ve been, perhaps a minted mirror
Which has misted in my eye, perhaps the rope stops here…
Come now, state your business.

* * *

Valentine
Alison Campbell Kinghorn

I know I was
before we were -
but now we are,
I’m us.

* * *

Now please put your hands together for…

Roddy Shippin, Jennifer Watson, Ruth Aylett, Derek White, James Hamilton, Rosa Macpherson, Stu Anderson, Katy Ewing, Stuart Jones, Billy Watson, JA Sutherland, Vicki Jarret, Laura Bilton, Alison Summers, Alan Waddell, Michael McGill, Georgi Gill, Halsted Bernard, Hannah Lavery, Chris Birnie,  Simon Bendle, Max Scratchmann, Antonia Landi, Andy Todd,  Peter Mackie, Marie Yan, the anonymous author of Until Midnight, Winston Plowes, Andrew Blair, Sean Burn, Callum Davies, and Alison Campbell Kingorn!

Thank you all! This has been the Inky Fingers Virtual Open Mic! Come back soon, and have a wonderful night!

* * *

The Poetry Event That Started On Time
Max Scratchmann

* * *

A Night at the Window
Antonia Landi

b.
b.b.
Double b.

be.be.

Sigh.

vroom.
vroom.vroom.
Double vroom.

Swwwwwwwoooosssshhh.

swiiiiisssshhh
swooossshhh
swiiiiisssshhh
swooossshhh

uuueeeuuueeeuuueeeuuueeessshhhh

Thump thump
thump

thump thump

thump.

Brrrrrrrrrzzzzzz
mrrrrdssshhh

dukdukdukdukdukdukdukdukduk.
click.

click.

* * *

The Almost True Story of Maurice Wilson: Mountain Hero
Andy Todd

20 years before Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing climbed Mt Everest, the world’s highest mountain, a cross-dressing shoe salesman from Bradford reached the top before them. This is the little known story of Maurice Wilson – and how he swapped high heels for hiking boots and back again.

In the 1930’s Maurice Wilson had a dream. In a world bruised and battered by the Great Depression he believed a single man, with faith in the Lord, could achieve anything.

Despite working in a women’s shoe shop, despite never visiting the Himalayas, Tibet, Nepal or even Asia, Maurice reached for the stars.

But first, as practice, he climbed Mt Snowden.

Mt Snowden is in Wales, which may be cold and inhospitable (especially Cardiff) but nothing to match conditions on Everest.

To put his training into perspective, climbing Snowden to prepare for Everest is a bit like jumping in a paddling pool to swim the Atlantic. Or closing the curtains and jumping up and down in a darkened room to walk on the moon. It’s simply not enough – and Maurice knew this, so he went hiking in the Lake District. Nothing prepares you for sub-zero conditions like a ice cream cone on the banks of Lake Windermere.

In summary, to prepare for a climb that many thought impossible, Maurice did two of the three peaks in the Three Peaks Challenge. But he didn’t do them in 24 hours. Nor did he go to Ben Nevis, presumably because it was too big and far away.

Maurice though had a plan. A cunning plan. He never intended to climb Everest, he was smarter than that. Instead he would fly a plane and crash into the top of Everest,  pop out of the wreck, jog to the summit and claim the mountain for Blighty!

Genius. He would climb Everest by… not climbing Everest. He must have been amazed that no-one had thought of this before.

Maurice had a problem though, another one, as not only did he not know how to climb, he also didn’t know how to fly.

Undeterred, he took flying lessons. These were not successful. His instructors refused to pass Maurice as they thought his flying was so bad he would kill himself during take off.

But that didn’t stop Maurice. Maurice had a dream, and dreams are there to be followed…

In 1933 he took off for Everest. The take off was a success, if success is judged by escaping with his life after he immediately crashed.

Three weeks later, Maurice took off again. He travelled across Europe and the Middle East in a tiny Tiger Moth plane he christened ‘Ever Wrest’. Despite the efforts of the British Government he made it to Nepal, who immediately hailed our intrepid hero, wished him all the best, and, while his back was turned, confiscated his plane to stop him crashing into their holy mountain.

Maurice could not be stopped. Despite border guards barring his way, he and two sherpas sneaked into Nepal disguised as Budhist monks.

According to his diary, Maurice, reached Everest one month later. Also, according to his diary, he would have got there faster, but he kept getting lost on the way.

History does not record whether Maurice had ever learnt to use a compass.

On May 15 1934, Maurice arrived at Everest. It was, as he suspected, remarkably like Snowden. Except 10 times bigger, 10 times colder, and without a steam train that takes pensioners all the way to the top.

But without a plane it was time for Plan B. Maurice would climb Everest singlehandedly.

This was not a success.

With no experience of climbing, no equipment, no clue what he was letting himself into, Maurice lasted five days before he had to turn back to base camp. In his diary Maurice wrote:

“It’s the weather that’s beaten me – what damned bad luck!”

But that didn’t stop Maurice. He tried a second time, and this time he made his way through faith, prayer and fasting almost all the way to the top until he was stopped by an ice wall that he couldn’t climb because, despite all his preparation, he had never learnt to use a rope.

And there he died. In a lonely tent at the foot of the wall, overcome by the cold, having failed to conquer Everest.

Or that’s what most folk think…

Here’s the thing…

Many years later, a Chinese expedition reported finding, just below the summit of Everest, a single high heeled women’s shoe. No-one could explain it. Chris Bonnington’s not known for his fondness for a patent leather pump, unless that pump inflated a belay bed at 30,000 feet.

Maurice on the other hand (or other foot) was different. It turned out that some nights former shoe salesman Maurice liked to be known as Maureen. And Maureen liked ladies shoes. And in his/her bag, in his/her tent at the base of the wall, Maureen nee Maurice had packed a floral dress.

So, how did the shoe get to the top of Everest? Could Maurice have reached the tip of the world in his high heels and floral dress? Did he use his stilettos as make shift ice axes to climb the Hilary step? Could he have reached the summit twenty years before any other man and have died on the way back down, and not on the way up, as many believe?

I’d like to think so.

One day, when temperatures rise and the top melts, we’ll find that shoe’s twin. A single high heel planted on the summit confirming that the first man on Everest with a women’s name was not Hilary but Maureen.

* * *

Rain Waterfall
Peter Mackie

The wind snows down rain waterfall.
Every people cried in the whole wide world.
And now love, beauty and madness reigns
Where such people laid my remains.

And now death breaks over the moor
While people rush to earn their living
But soon they will rush no more,
Never, never, never, please, no more.

It’s all been best in rain waterfall
For I have known people there
And their spirit cries, “No more,
Never, never, never, please, no more.”

And I hope you will be with me there,
For I have found out, I do want to stay there.

This poem is set to music at http://www.reverbnation.com/petergmackie; we unfortunately can’t embed the track.

* * *

One of us
Marie Yan

1
Tisiphone enters the stage. Noise coming from the background. A silence.

Tisiphone: Don’t do that.

A silence. Then the sound of a large vase crashing on the floor.

Alecto: (from the background) Never knew that this shit was so heavy.
Tisiphone: It was full of memories.

A silence.

Alecto: Please. Go on. This is the perfect moment to get sentimental once again. (A pause) Oh. Wait. This lamp is still here? I thought you threw it away.
Tisiphone: Well, I didn’t.

The sound of the lamp crashing on the floor.

Alecto: See? Easy.
Tisiphone: I got it. Please stop.
Alecto: (stumbling in the mess) Shit.
Tisiphone: I need a drink. Do you want a drink?
Alecto: Yes, please.

Tisiphone goes to help himself to a drink. In the background, a silence, then the sound of an out of tune piano and of shoes squeaking on broken glass. Tisiphone sits back and puts down the glass on the coffee table. A silence. Alecto enters the stage, takes the glass, drinks it down and crashes it on the floor.

Alecto: (infuriated) AAAAAAAH! AH!
Tisiphone: Feeling any better?
Alecto: You know, I never trusted you for this type of job. I’ve always preferred to handle it myself.
Tisiphone: I know.
Alecto: Years passing by, I grew more confident about you. I felt that you could manage it. Deal with it properly.
Tisiphone: I…
Alecto: You shut the fuck up. (A pause) I should have known you were too soft. Saddening, despairing, that’s your part. I realise this job was out of your league.

2
Oscar: Hello. I’m here for the nightkeeper position. Yeah. Oh, is that you? Thanks for giving me this interview. It’s not been easy. You know. Prison. It scares off most people. They don’t call back once they know. Can’t blame them.

3
Alecto: That was so simple, though. The perfect job for you to prove yourself capable. A real chance. You could have been promoted. What did you choose to do? You chose to waste it.

4
Oscar: Thank you sir. That’s grand to take me. I won’t disappoint you. I’m a hard-worker. I know the job is about watching a CCTV screen and going around the building every hour, but still. I think I have just the little more confidence that allows one to do a very good job.

5
Tisiphone: Let’s start the whole process all over again?
Alecto: Stop. Stop that. Stop saying nonsense for fuck sake. It would take far too long. Cases have to be dealt with in time. You know that!

(A silence)

6
Oscar: We will take good care of that place. Yep. Very good care. As if it had always been ours. As if we had always been here. A very good job, that’s what we’re gonna do. We can do that. We’re not too bad.

7
Tisiphone: Please forgive me.
Alecto: You know how long it took me? Months. It took me months to prepare him, to make him ready for the final step. When you took it over, he was ready. All corrupted, about to surrender and blow up nicely.
Tisiphone: We can find a way to fix it.
Alecto: (panicking) And if we don’t? And if we don’t?

8
Oscar is standing in a nightkeeper uniform, hands behind the back. Humming a tune, doing a few steps of dance.

9
(Alecto and Tisiphone are hugging. Alecto is crying and sobbing.)

Tisiphone: Shhhh, shhh. It wasn’t your fault. I wasn’t strong enough. Just not strong enough. We used to be like them. I recalled it at the wrong moment.

(Silence)

Alecto: I gave it back to him. I gave it back to him so that he could remember what happened more easily. I wanted to make your job easier.
Tisiphone: I know, I know.

10
Oscar is sitting at a desk and seems bored. He has a look around suspiciously and then takes something from his pocket. It’s a weeble. He puts it on the table and gives it a nudge to make it move. He looks at it for a moment. Then, without stopping to look at the toy, he tries to reach a glass of water. He misses it and the glass goes crashing to the floor.

Oscar: AH! AAAAAAH!

Oscar is shivering from neck to toe. He presses his hands against his mouth. A pause. Then he voluntarily pushes something else to the floor with his elbow. It goes crashing to the floor too. He screams in his hands. The toy keeps swinging.

11
Alecto and Tisiphone, still hugging.

Alecto: (his voice shivers) You know what is going to happen to you, don’t you? You know what they do when you fail a contract?

Tisiphone nods, staring blankly above Alecto’s shoulder.

12
Oscar is wearing different clothes, sitting, his hands holding his knees.

A voice: Could you please make your statement of what happened?

Oscar: (A deep breath) He shouts at me. He shouts at me with his tiny annoying voice. He says I’m no good, no good at all. He says he will tell everyone who I am, what I do. He is crying. Crying and shouting and his nose runs. I try to reach him to make him stop shouting at me. To take him in my arms and tell him everything’s ok. But he spits on me and then runs away in the corridor. I run after him, to talk, just to talk. And I grab his arm and he struggles, he doesn’t want to talk. I want to shush him, but he wouldn’t. He hits everything around him. Everything. It all goes crashing on the floor. My pictures. The big pink vase. The plants in their ceramic pots. It’s noisy, terribly noisy. Everything’s crashing. Except… Except… I just want to talk and he doesn’t. I hold him. And then. And then… (He sobs)

The light changes.

13
Alecto and Tisiphone, standing.

Alecto: I love you.
Tisiphone: I love you too.
Alecto: Better be me.
Tisiphone Yes.
Alecto: It will be quicker if it’s me. It won’t hurt you as much, I promise.
Tisiphone: Yes.

Alecto opens his arms and they hug again.

14
Oscar is back at his desk, wearing the nightkeeper uniform, his hands around his ears. He cries and sniffs. Then pushes something else from his desk. He curls up, waiting for the sound but it doesn’t break. He sits back straight, shivering. Then a invisible string pulls something else from his desk. It makes an awful noise. He cries out of surprise. Another thing is pulled out from his desk. And then, another. Soon, only sounds of objects crashing. He curls up on the floor, nothing is moving except him. New sounds, louder and louder. We hear undistinctly the sound of a struggle in the background. The sounds eventually diminishes and Oscar starts laughing quietly to himself. He soon bursts out laughing, completely miserable. Tisiphone enters and watches Oscar a few moment, he is holding a large ugly pink vase, hesitating to break it down. Oscar reaches the weeble on the desk and cuddles it.

15
Tisiphone: I don’t know why it’s so hard. I’ve always been good at the whole thing. How could have this one escaped me? One after the others, they all fell. A razor, a rope, a gun. They all did what they were supposed to as I was already cleaning up after them, hoovering the pieces of the life they quit broken. I’ve always felt that I was helping them: making their mind clearer and their guilt close to holiness. I wanted a new challenge I suppose. I had always admired the other side of this. My job was about time and loneliness, this one was about the rhythm. The right time. The moment. The breach. Just the right move that breaks them and takes them down to their knees. I wanted to reach the point where I would need to feel exactly the same as you to get it right. It lost me.

The light changes. They disappear.

16
Alecto enters the stage, carrying a bloody saw. He goes to pick up Tisiphone’s empty glass from the coffee table. He stares at it and holds it tight against him. He remains motionless for a moment. The light changes to reveal Oscar sitting back at his desk, staring blankly, the toy gently swinging in front of him. Alecto rises his head to look at him.

Black.

* * *

The Sign
Georgi Gill

‘Hey, pal, d’you see yon sign doon Gorgie Road
Taped tae the windae of the Horseshoe Bar?’

‘Aye – The Chance to See a Seer.
Are we gonny go?
Will we get our futures telt?
The jobs, the wimmin, the lottery win.
By Christmas we’ll be sillert an’ seilie.
Will she gaze long in wan of yon glass baws?
Gaze and craw like a bitch-fou corbie
“The Jambos’ll lift the cup!”

Are we gonny go?
Will she see our auras and orra that?
Let’s see what she kens, this hen?
Just mebbe she kens where ma Mary went
and why she took the bairns?’
Why ma bureau’s nae great dale
an ah’m aye kemping fer nocht?
Does she ken why life’s a bastart skiddle?’

‘Naw, pal, naw. No that sign. The other yin.
Aw pints twa pund aw day.’

* * *

Grow Together
Halsted Bernard

* * *

From amongst the weeping women
Hannah Lavery

Remember how we travelled with the spices and the jewels; through the deserts and the hot plains. How we looked upon the oceans and stood at the edges.

You walked with us, with us healers, with us women. We took you in. We shared our wisdom, our suffering, our love with you.

You healed with us.

You prayed with us.

You walked with us.

You stood with us.

You fall and we remember. I remember, I remember that hot road.

Here, they lament at your suffering to come but we, you and I, we know of suffering. We know of sacrifice. We knew long before you stood before them. We had met it, met it then, there in that quiet place, in that darkness and in that fire.

A shout; a call from the dark, a weeping husband begging us to follow him. Her women, stooped low with exhaustion, stone still, cold, defeated.

Inside, the girl, beautiful like sunlight, suffering with her long labouring. On her knees, clawing at the dirt, moans deep, hips high, head low, body rocking, swaying, begging, fighting; a deep darkness readying.

I went to her with an old remembered song. I pulled her up into my arms and held her in a slow dance. You added to the fire with the herbs we had gathered. You went deep into to the shadows.

You stood.

I held her upright in my arms. Her broken, worn out body rested itself against mine. She sought strength and relief from me and then we began to sing, to dance her boy, her gift, into the world. Her fragile arms reached down low to catch him, to draw him up and close.

Afterwards, I lay down with her and guided her boy to her breast and for a short moment we were blessed.

Then, you shook in the darkness. You spoke in low whispers; the shadows had come for her.

As she brimmed with the fever, you and I battled alongside her and as she was taken in convulsions, you took her boy away in your arms.

I saw you wet him with your tears.

I kissed her, I held her so still body to mine and you bought him back to the last of her milk, to the last of her warmth.

And, remember, we stayed there beside her and her child; in the heat of the herbs and in the fire of our prayer.

And, you left, only as her spirit left and I stayed and cleaned her.

I wound him tightly in a piece of her cloth with a lock of her hair tied in close.

Later, we shared water from the well.

That time, my friend, my teacher; that time, those days when you stood with me, with us, will not survive in their telling but the heart of those dark nights; the truth gathered from amongst us women will remain because of you; because you took our stories, our tears, our wisdom and bathed yourself in it and I hear us, in you. I hear those days you took; from the darkness you took; from her dirt floor you took. I hear us, we hear us, in you.

They call you prophet, they call you messiah.

They speak of you and I remember. I remember you. Your love holding me from where you stood with the shadows and I believe. We believe, because you were with us, in our struggles, in our magic, in our beauty. We gave you something of us, something that you now give to them.

We, call you truth.

We, women of the spirit, of the earth, of the herbs; we, handmaidens; we, wet nurses; we, midwives; we, mothers and whores, will all be forgotten, but our stories, our stories whispered into the dark, into the shadows, we give those to you.

We witness, we gather here, here amongst these weeping women, amongst these Daughters of Jerusalem, we stand here, by you, by your mother, by Veronica; veiled and silent, willing you to stand up, to stand tall in your purple robes, in your crown of thorns.
We stand here forever, in the shadows of your story, in the dark forgotten corners of your life, in the light of your death. We stand, here amongst these weeping, wailing women; we, the women of the spirit, of the earth; we, whose nails have clawed at the dirt.

* * *

Road Kill
Clive Birnie

If you have ever hit a badger, you will
understand. It’s a life changing event.
The flash of stripe. A crunch. What have I killed?

A man, dog or deer? Oh I shall repent,
driving too fast, too late and in the dark.
Turn off the engine. Step out into the wet

to find her unharmed. Leaning on the car,
bent double, wracked by such a hacking cough.
“It’s the fags,” she said, “gives me bad catarrh.”

I took her home. To rest and to recover.
With crumpets and sweet tea, sat her by the fire,
a blanket on her knees. It was no bother

really, but it can only be the stripes,
she drank all the water in the taps and smoked my Lucky Strikes.

If you’ve ever been hit by a car, you will
understand. It is a life changing event.
The flash of light. Seeing stars. What! Am I killed?

Heading out that night – I had only just left.
No moon. No stars. To light or mark my path.
Stupid really. I’d stopped to light a Kent,

when – BANG! – it came. Flipped out all the Earth.
I should say, it really turned me over,
I came THAT close to throwing up on his car.

But if you can girls, try and pick your driver.
Take a chance. Pick a card. It doesn’t happen twice.
If you hit a wild one, boys, she might be a tiger.

So what? He likes to moan. So I smoked his precious Strikes.
I ate his food, drank his beer. What about my stripes?

* * *

Percy on Song
Simon Bendle

Good old Col Percy Harrison Fawcett. Mad as a monkey of course. Who else would devote half his life to looking for lost civilisations in South America? But he was also a professional British army officer of the old school, tough and tenacious. And it’s this curious mix of hard-headed soldier and kooky eccentric that no doubt caused him to react so memorably when, in 1910, he came under attack from Amazonian Indians.

Percy was heading up the Heath River in Peru when it happened. He was in dangerous territory. He’d been warned not to venture there. But off he’d gone anyway, his small party poling its way up the murky river in canoes. And predictably, on the seventh day, the men rounded a bend and ran straight into a group of “Guarayo” warriors who wasted little time in sending their way a hail of poisoned arrows.

Percy and his men found themselves pinned down on the other riverbank, the deadly missiles zipping over their heads and thumping into the ground around them. But they held fire: retaliation would surely only seal their fate. And instead Percy tried raising both hands and shouting “peace overtures” across the water at the bowmen. This proved unsuccessful. “The arrows,” Percy wrote, “flew thicker than ever!”

Then inspiration struck. Among Percy’s men was one Gunner Todd, a musical fellow who happened to be travelling with his accordion (as you do). Todd was directed to sit on a log and start playing, stamping his feet to keep time. A “mad sing-song” followed, strains of “Onward, Christian Soldiers”, “Bicycle Made For Two” and “Swannee River” bellowing through the rainforest. “Ludicrous…” Percy later conceded, “Anyone coming on this scene would have said we were all roaring drunk.”

Ludicrous or not, it worked. Mystified Indians, their faces painted, began emerging from cover. Seizing the moment, Percy hopped into his canoe and paddled over to greet them. Incredibly, friendly relations were quickly established. Laughter and back-slapping followed. By dusk, Indians and explorers were old pals and Gunner Todd and his accordion once again took centre stage. “We slept well that night,” Percy wrote, “for no one was required on guard.”

* You can read more in Exploration Fawcett, an entertaining account of Percy’s adventures complied from his letters, log-books and papers