On The Rocks (Eng)

The Big Easy/New Orleans On New Year's Day,2025, a terrorist drove a truck into celebrating crowds, causing carnage The end of life should be a peaceful thing. When sleep slides into death, as in a dream When spirit joins the secret, silent stream The end of life should be a peaceful thing The end of life should be a peaceful thing Not some nightmare where city sirens scream Not seared upon the global media screen The end of life should be a peaceful thing The end of life should be a peaceful thing Not mowed down by a murder fuelled machine A happy street turned hideous, obscene The end of life should be a peaceful thing Out of thin air, a guillotine descending Wrong time, wrong place. Beyond all care or mending I am Lochnagar I am Lochnagar The biggest mine crater in the Somme Is named after me. Lord Byron composed a song for me I feature in postcards, paintings, brochures I have Royal Connections But does the adoring public cherish me? Litter louts ruin me with rubbish, Human waste. Barbecue detritus In return, I throw avalanches at them, Flesh chilling blizzards Thick as pea-soup mists, 100mph winds. Nothing puts them off In April 1981, a climber fell to his death From the final pitch of Black Spout Buttress. He was un-roped, so his 2 companions survived Their number wasn't up. Up they come in flimsy trainers, Summer joggers, no compass Thinking a Mars Bar's all the back -up they need When they pit their will against mine As if I'm a day out on the beach I flick them off like flies Their bones splinter like matches My cliffs are 200 meters high The Stack, Eagle Ridge, Black Spout Buttress The Sinister Buttress, The Sentinel Perseverance Wall, The Cathedral Chimney Magic Pillar, Jacob's Slabs, The Vice… They chip away at my sides, erode my paths Sometimes they die of exposure, frostbite Hypothermia. If they are lucky enough To be rescued, by helicopter, or Mountain Rescue teams They crow about how brave they've been The glory of the challenge. No word Of the cost and inconvenience to others. Climbers heart rates skyrocket. The very unfit keel over with heart attacks. Strains, sprains, fractures are de rigeur Asthmatic? Stay at home if the weather's bad. I am one of the immortals I am Lochnagar. I am not a playground Three ds Relocated, demented, divorced or dead Another year gone by. So many fled The wise, the loyal, the witty, the always game The young bulls turned blind, or deaf, or lame Relocated, demented, divorced or dead Too frightening to contemplate what lies ahead Twelve months on, more spaces at the table Did I dream my life? Or was it just a fable? Relocated, demented, divorced or dead Pale ghosts drained off like veins that opened, bled And was it worth it all? The passion, the ambition? Vanished like tumbleweed in a Hollywood cowboy fiction? Well Hello Mr Death Some people say Death is a thing to dread That life at any price is to be sought That at the last, the heart should rule the head Professor Bakker took a girl to bed A student - his poor family were distraught Suicide his solution. One snipped thread Alan Whyte was pottering in his shed A heart attack, quick end, and not too fraught Death called, and he was happy to be led Mrs Clare in childbirth cried and bled Her labour pains in vain, all come to nought A little, unused life was born dead Pierce Douglas in his souped up motor sped (Adrenaline junky, wheels burning hot) Quite off the road, to the Hereafter fled John begged and stole, thus his addiction fed Killing him by degrees, Death slowly bought One hit too many, . So, another, fled And thus in many forms, welcomed or fought Death takes us from our work, life, couch or cot On the bus A student, hunched in a parka nods off, snoring Condensation matches the rain down-pouring A shopper blocks the seat with bulging bags A skeletal beggar steams in his sodden rags A bully dog curls its lip in a grimace ‘Sorry! ' the driver growls ‘We've no more space' A schoolboy rings the bell and everyone groans An OAP who's standing, sighs an moans A pot hole makes the whole bus jump and jar For comfort, safety, better take the car The Pinto Poem I imagined a white pony called Pinto Once, it had been a circus horse In a fictitious circus. Now, it stood in the rain and mud Of my mind. Stalled at verse one It refused to move. It stamped and whinnied It steamed. It snorted. I placed twigs under its belly. I lit them It neighed out a sentence in equine indignation It dropped an expression of dung I shoved a bunch of thorn under its tail. It looked at me as if to say ‘Really? ' I gave up. I led the Pinto poem Into the stable of imagination A cobweb drifted over my cerebellum Behind my left ear, an owl hooted softly Sugggesting a line or two or maybe a sestina A Fishy Poem Carp & brill, haddock & hake Kipper, halibut, whitebait Tuna, bream, pilchard & sole Sturgeon, shark, & mackerel Mullet, salmon, plaice & trout Cast your hook & pull it out Sardine, tuna, swordfish, pike Herring, cook them as you like Favourie Friday food is fish Served with chips, mouth watering dish For Rab Blackhall 1945-2025 His work is done, his kindly presence gone The best of men, a well respected breed Grown from a pedigree of farming seed Today Cromar has lost a precious son In youth he was a source of harmless fun At marquees he was quick to join the dance Took off his dram to many a smiling glance Today Cromar has lost a precious son And in the show ring, many times he won Prizes for leading cattle, groomed and cleaned Their hides brushed sleek, hooves polished till they gleamed Today Cromar has lost a precious son Fate measures each man's span, his race is run A father, husband, grandfather and friend Cherished by kin and neighbour till the end Today Cromar has lost a precious son Death always brings the power to hurt and stun And in the howe there's heavy hearts today His trials ended, pain now smoothed away Today Cromar has lost a precious son The Marmalade Millionaire In eighteen hundred and eighty six John Keiller of Dundee Bought land on Deeside's bonnie braes An went on a spending spree He built in granite Morven Lodge Twas named ‘The Shooting Box' And lo betide the pheasant or grouse Or occasional straying fox And those were the heady sporty days When toffs met up to shoot Whatever flew up from the heather Dressed in tweeds and sturdy boots This great Victorian entrepreneur He didn't grow rich on spam But on that queen of the condiments His famous marmalade jam They say his ghost still squelches about The Gairn, in his thick plus-fours Fuelled by a breakfast of porridge and toast With the marmalade he adores