East Coast Kiss - verse for the New Year

An East Coast kiss

And so, we’re here

Happy New Year

I said, and then I tripped

Before I knew

What I was doing

I’d kissed her on the lips

No no, she said

And shook her head

That’s inappropriate

I’m sorry, I lied, and she replied

That garlic that you ate

Quite gave me a turn

And I returned

To the years I spent in France

Bien sur, Je disais

Thinking: that was easy

Voulez vous a peerie dance?

We cut a rug

And drank a jug

Or two of Bloody Marys

Then it was time to go

Through the ice and snow

The trip was pretty hairy

To her Marchmont door

Where we kissed some more

I’d been eating spearmint creams

But when I said

I think it’s time for bed

She said, Casanova, in your dreams 

I hitched a lucky ride

Back to East Kilbride

I glimpsed a sign in the morning light

But it wisnae true

'Embra welcomes you'?

Aye. That will be shining bright.

I was welcomed home by my Rottweiler Lee

On the sofa she’d done a copious pee

So I opened a Belgian Golden Ale

And sat, like Oor Wullie, on a pail.

New Year's Day, Shetland. Lighthouse, Eshaness, Hillswick.

Leftovers - a post-Christmas poem for Rug and Dexter

Leftovers

Last of the turkey - the 29th of December

Roasted, sandwiched, utterly dismembered

Stock into soup, unknown leftover veg

Boiled and blended. Now I pledge

Henceforth, no fowl will be consumed

No chicken, duck or pheasant will be doomed

To a culinary fate

No bird will grace my plate

Fly, fly away sweet goose and grouse

Go far away from our unfeathered house

Vegetarians we shall become, and stay

At least until the dawn of New Year’s Day

For then we must, unless we die

Partake of butcher’s shop steak pie

Which, while it contains some form of meat

Does not have wings that flap or beat.

As for the dogs, Rug was outdone by Dexter

He stole her turkey skin, which vexed her

And come New Year, he’ll lick the ashets bare

And leave poor Rug to stand and glumly stare

At glistening foil, her slobber all a-dangle

Her jowls a-quiver, her sensitivities mangled

By the presence of this hyperactive beast

This devil dog, this appetite unleashed

Competing with her over every scrap

Disturbing every well-earned 12-hour nap

With pawings, nips and barks and growls galore

Which penetrate the deepest St Bernard snores

Until she’s forced to rise to her full height

And clench her massive jaws with all her might

On Dexter’s tiny head

He would be dead

If she had any teeth - but only gums

Close on his canine cranium

So he’ll survive into another year

He’ll cause no end of trouble too, I fear

In 2015. There is no doubt of that

Especially when he meets our brand-new cat...

Walking in black and white: Hillswick Ness, big sky, short day, wee dug

New poem: The Generator's Song. Walking the Doggerel book available now

Walking the Doggerel: Unreasonable Rhymes by Tom Morton. Available here: http://blur.by/1znyEpC

The Generator’s song

Mr Soichiro Honda, I salute you

Not for your Goldwings and Blackbirds

Your Deauvilles and Dominators

Varaderos and Nighthawks

Much as I have loved them, 

Bought, sold traded in

Fallen off and fallen in love

With Fireblades and Valkyries

Transalps and Africa Twins

It’s numbers, letters for me now

Not CX500s or NS400s

Or where it all started

A CD175, black and silver

Those elipses, those pudgy curves...

An HRX 476 is what I keep

A gentleman’s lawnmower

Reliable, instantly woken

From its season's sleep

But now, at the heart

Of our bleak winter 

Another machine stands silent

Ready to provide salvation

Heat, light and television

Internet and radio

Connected, primed, 

Its tank is full

When crisis hits

It starts with just a single pull

EC2000! In hurricane and gale

You should know, Soichiro-san 

It cannot fail.