Poetry Friday: Not Clever

Getting in Touch with our Feminine Sides

It's morning and it's just the two of us

in the Transit crew-bus, driving out to work,

past dew-hung spruce, in this neck of the woods.

The floor is strewn

with chainsaws, chains, tools, grease-guns, tubes of grease

while the whole van stinks of sap and two-stroke mix.


I would screw my oil stained Maxproof coat up

into a ball

and try to grab some kip but today I just can't sleep.

And it's not the jolting over pot-holed roads

or the flare of light that's keeping me awake –

I'm worried sick.

Geoff is smoking pre-rolled Holborn roll-ups

by the barrow-load. He flicks the greasy butts

out of the narrow window slit and says,

frankly, not much.

The towering Sitka spin by, blue and gorgeous

in the warmth of the brilliant, early morning sun


and it's all so picturesque that I am overcome

with a desire

Read the rest of Tim Turnbull's poem here.

I found this collection of Best Scottish Poems, 2004 just casting about on the Web for modern Scottish poetry. I love the language; "Not clever," is a disparaging phrase I hear often here. This struck me as especially funny as I once made a statement much like this in my teen years, and my father heard me, and there was a great kerfluffle. He thought I was disrespecting my mother, sainted motherhood, something. Still strikes me as all very amusing.

Poetry Friday rolls on! If you're interested in hosting, October dates are available. Today's host is The Well-Read Child.