Tickets

The golden jute steeped
in the warm stomach of Bengal
instead of paddy.

In 1883 alone, over a million
bales were sent to Dundee.

Jute balled wool and cotton
packed commodities
ventilated gold miners
lined cars and carriages
turned sail canvas across oceans
roped the anchor for the Empire.

When the war broke, jute
took care of sandbags in trenches,
military tents, gun covers,
webbed army uniforms for the Empire.

After the war
jute could not buy rice
with its returns.

A white shadow of the famine lingers

in debt the machinery of dark dreams
still takes from an Indian poet 10£ to see
the Verdant jute factory museum in Dundee.

Sky Ink

– for Brìghde Chaimbeul, Scottish smallpipe artist

A door bellows into the Atlantic Ocean
wild isle winds drone seeds into cities.

The mask of memories mutates
through the ageless aches of love
to say something
as holy as melancholy.

Is this a lullaby of the faerie,
or embodiment of an eagle,
or a voyage within
an absurdist painting,
these tunes which
spiral the heart
from a sea loch to the sea.

Foraging

– for Kenny Hunter, Scottish sculptor

The magma migrates, forms
childhood memories to fossil bends,
where does an art work begin or end?

As long as you keep
your sculpture dancing
you can keep it from falling apart.

The forehead clay
in its personal ferocity
brings a spectrum of grace
what's written will happen
even if the night's awake.

Sculpt a hard cloud of social sacrifices
place it on a pedestal of the right height
for it to safe land on this soft tip of now.

Embryo

When you ask people
to say something random
they will mostly reply:
What do you want me to say?

They will never go:
The common arachnids
are spiders, scorpions, and ticks.

They find Jonathan Yeo’s painting
portrait of King Charles III
too red, too ghoulish.

In response to trope that the sun
never set on the British Empire
some recall Chartist Ernest Jones words
“and the blood never dried.”

We are used to snacking
on blood pudding for medallions.

Drinking blood is an ancient art
like the goddess Kali drinks
without a drop falling on the ground
the blood of Raktabeeja
so, no clone of demon spawns.

Red is innocent born.

These poems were written while the author was a resident poet at Stirling University, UK, as part of the Charles Wallace Writing Fellowship (2023-24).