by Ron Butlin
Trident Mantra
Here’s Fruit Juice raising the lid of our communal street bin.
ZOOM in on Edinburgh’s most celebrated dosser,
his boots, overalls and multi-layered cape
(buttonless coat, windjammer jacket,
fleece) clambering in,
headfirst.
(His bicycle clutters the nearby pavement –
handlebars and frame a tangle of
broken-backed rucksacks, holdalls,
Tesco bags-for-life.)
He’s choosing his new spring wardrobe?
A recliner for a long weekend?
The metal lid’s slammed back down.
TRACK him wheeling away his property –
the ballast that helps him stay on course.
His streets, his bins, his treasure trove,
and all Edinburgh for a bed.
(Thanks to Face-Recognition Software, CCTV,
and Trident patrolling our dreams
to keep us safe, Scottish history is now updated
as it actually happens.
Living and dying is given real meaning.)
ZOOM in on those souvenir stigmata scars
across his palms. Silken-sleek, and gashed
the length of Gareloch every time
£20 billion and rising
slides into dock.
TRACK him. TRACK him to the next street,
to the next bin. TRACK his morning prayers.
TRACK the mantra that gets him through the day –
Vanguard. Victorious. Vigilant. Vengeance.
We live in a glass kingdom that seems each day to become more fragile. Should we worry? After all, our elders and betters are determined to take care of us.
A History of The Glass Kingdom
Back then, High Priests would breathe on every surface
of our sacred heart-stone,
lesser priests breathed
on the everyday transparency of streets,
buildings, billboards, trees, grass
and falling rain.
They breathed and they polished,
they made our precious kingdom shine!
(Beyond our borders lay a thanklessness
of darkness and division
where local deities clawed the sky,
stamped on the earth
to get attention.
Matters of life and death were settled
by divine clumsiness.
Small gods and smaller men – envy
gave them strength.)
Meanwhile, the light streaming from our
sacred heart-stone’s core purified
and protected us.
Our dreams were forgiven,
our longings and regrets (the mess
of fingerprints we’d smear on whatever
we desired)
were painlessly erased.
Contented years, contented centuries. Until –
*
This morning, the sun has come to a standstill.
Beneath us, the permafrost contracts.
We feel it crack.
Feel it split.
Glaciers and polar icecaps are breaking off,
slipping (so distant from us, we hardly
hear a sound)
into the warming waters.
Our priests assure us they continue to breathe
and to polish every single moment
of every single day.
They say they breathe and polish harder
than ever before.
They have new incantations, they tell us,
new rituals.
Do they think they can move the sun?
*
Computer simulations show our kingdom
catching fire. Such an electronic crackling,
such a roar from the surround-sound speakers!
See-through roads and bridges melt.
Glass-hard girders buckle in the heat.
History’s a sentence left forever
incomplete …
Victoria de Los Angeles was not only a celebrated singer …
The Composer’s Cat
This cat we knew.
Alas, no longer now –
her chromatic rough-lick mew,
her mellow-modulated meow.
Armchair and bed preferred to floor,
or else, a stretched out belly-furred
lintel for an open door,
while feline micro-engine purred.
*
You morning-pawed to break night’s spell
and wake another day.
And so your nine lives passed away.
Our thanks and greetings, and farewell,
Victoria LA.
The Darien Scheme of 1698 was Scotland’s attempt at creating an international trading company to rival those of the English and Dutch. Speculation gripped the country, many rich and poor invested all their savings. They lost everything. Of the original 1,200 men and women who colonised the Isthmus of Darien, only a few survived. Had they been able to google Panama before setting out, much misery might have been averted. Perhaps.
Darien II
Real-time seems to pass too slowly?
Then defragment it.
If that doesn’t work –
RUN a virus check.
QUARANTINE the Scottish gods who’ve hacked
into the system.
If that doesn’t work –
•
GOOGLE ‘Financial Speculation:
The Darien Scheme / Disaster, 1698’
•
Print off each sorry A4 sheet
•
Origami a fleet of paper boats
•
Add 1,200 human lives for ballast
•
Float the doomed armada 300+years into the past
UPLOAD the slurried, fever-ridden Panama swamps,
the gorged mosquitoes, the rats,
the snakes, the total lack of
anyone to trade with.
Most of all, the endless
tropical rain rain
rain and more rain.
UPLOAD the weight of Scottish gold
and silver coin (half the country’s
hoarded wealth) stacked
and strongboxed on the nation’s desktop
as on a green-baize gaming-table …
If that doesn’t work –
SWITCH OFF at the mains and wait for 30 seconds.
REBOOT
Go to VIRUS VAULT
SELECT ‘Scottish gods’ and ‘Unforgiveness’
Right-click both
DELETE
Meanwhile, Scottish history will have timed out.
REFRESH?
(Warning – Real-time does NOT repeat!)
The large and prominent clock of Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel looks down the length of Princes Street, and is always set three minutes ahead. This is to speed up passengers who have trains to catch at nearby Waverley station.
Our Plea To The Balmoral Clock
Gazing down upon our all-too-human delay
of almost-joined-up city streets,
and a mortality that clearly
cannot be relied on,
you seem to promise us – what?
Do you feel the urgency behind our as-yet
unspoken words of love, the ache within
the gestures we lack courage
to complete?
Do you understand our need for hopes
and fears to free us
from the present moment?
If so, what we ask is this –
Let whatever time you show us
be our invitation into the future –
and a blessing on us all.
Like art and religion before it, business enterprise now takes on the responsibility to create the world we live in …
Whatever Next?
Who hasn’t dreamt of windfarms in Princes Street?
Strictly dem
ocratic, they’ll brighten up our lives
electric-wise from Granton to Grange,
Jenner’s to Poundland.
Just imagine –
fifty-foot high maitre d’s perpetually
ushering us in to picnic
on the grassy slopes.
How the world will envy us!
How Glasgow will envy us!
It only needs a business plan.
Somewhere deep beneath the Castle, we’ll have
a terra-cotta army standing guard,
as well it should.
McPyramids will house the future line
of Scottish pharaohs.
Ah yes, a business plan …
Wee Referendum Burd
See thon burbled chatter gaitherin
in the gloamin?
There’s aye yin as canna git heard,
canna git sortit,
but keeps on joukin in an oot,
roun an aboot –
His sang’s the name he’ll caa hissel –
gin yince he sings it oot!
I love music and frequently work with composers and musicians. It’s been my pleasure to produce the libretti for seven operas and numerous texts for orchestral and chamber pieces. Poets are often musicians manqué.
An Opera To Last A Lifetime
Before we ever learn to say –
we sing. Breathing song,
seeing-hearing-smelling-tasting—
touching everything-and-everyone song.
Then words come. Words mean.
Words weigh out what it is
we feel, what it is we do.
Who we are, who they are.
Separating what once was one
into here and there,
into now and then,
into theirs and yours and mine.
And so, if we would really live again,
if we would feel alive again –
Let’s sing and sing and SING!
With our planet heading ever more rapidly towards self-destruct thanks to the tireless efforts of big business, governments and the like, it’s about time someone came up with a plan.
How To Save The World
PART A
Question 1:
Please SELECT which best describes you:
DICTATOR / OLIGARCH WARLORD (local)
WARLORD (freelance) /CEO OF MULTINATIONAL
CORPORATION involved in energy production,
in the chemical or biotech industries, or in mass media /
WEAPONS MANUFACTURER or ARMS DEALER /
POLITICIAN (self-appointed or otherwise) /
BANKER/FINANCIER / TERRORIST
(freelance) / TERRORIST (affiliated) / OTHER
If you selected WEAPONS MANUFACTURER
or ARMS DEALER,
please proceed directly to PART B
Otherwise, go to question 2
Question 2:
Do you believe that YOU personally can save the world?
YES / NO / NOT SURE
If you selected YES, please proceed directly to PART B
Otherwise, go to Question 3
Question 3:
In the event of a nuclear, biological, chemical or terrorist
attack, do you believe YOUR personal security is vital to
the world’s survival?
YES / NO / NOT SURE
If you selected YES, please proceed directly to PART B
Otherwise, go to Question 4
Question 4:
Are you prepared to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to save
the world?
YES / NO / NOT SURE
If you selected YES, please proceed directly to PART B
If you have selected NO, or NOT SURE to questions
2–4, please proceed directly to PART D
Otherwise, go to Question 5
Question 5:
On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is NOT AT ALL
CONFIDENT and 10 SUPREMELY CONFIDENT,
how confident are you that the world can be saved
by you ONLY?
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
If you scored 2 or less, please proceed directly to PART D
Otherwise proceed to PART B
PART B
From the drop-down menu, please SELECT
your current Real Time Location (RTL),
i.e. where you are now.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have selected ‘COUNTRY X’
BREAKING NEWS – While you have been completing
PART A of this questionnaire, COUNTRY X has been
warned of a nuclear-biological-chemical-terrorist attack.
STATUS: IMMINENT
Please CHOOSE Username and Password
Please CONFIRM Username and Password
Please follow the link to –
www.howtosavetheworldfromitsenemies.com/
mypersonalsurvival
Please ENTER Username and Password
Please ENTER postcode of your RTL
The onscreen map indicates your nearest
Designated Safe Location (DSL).
Please proceed IMMEDIATELY to your DSL
for further instructions.
NOTE: Do not engage in conversation / explanation
with anyone before quitting your current RTL.
PART C
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have now reached your DSL.
ENTER Username and Password
When Door / Hatch Manhole Cover Other opens,
please proceed immediately inside.
NOTE: Door / Hatch Manhole Cover Other
will automatically lock behind you.
Do not be alarmed.
This is for your comfort and security.
Please find your WELCOME PACK.
You will remain in your DSL until advised to leave.
Enjoy your stay!
NOTE –
Feedback forms are included in your WELCOME PACK
PART D
THANK YOU.
You have successfully completed the questionnaire.
BREAKING NEWS – There is NO nuclear-biological-chemical-terrorist threat currently imminent. Self-selected
enemies to world peace are already placing themselves in
permanent detention.
When advised to do so, please feel free to begin celebrating.
Then get on with your life.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Scottish Cat and Scottish Mouse
The very first Because
(no paws or claws
but logic’s laws)
came once upon a mouse-click
slick as any electronic
tick … tick … tick …
through Time’s deleted was.
Binary YES and binary NO,
the cursor showing where to go
(its heartbeat is what matters most
to touchscreen lives
lived ghost-to-ghost).
But oh! Oh! OH!
that once upon a long ago
catabatic flow
that’s brought us from entropic high
to less entropic low!
Never mind the why and how
or need-to-know,
only that we’ve come at last
to now – i.e. what this cat and mouse allow.
Scottish cat and Scottish mouse
play hide-and-seek about our house –
no walls, no floors,
no stairs, no doors,
and nothing in between,
just me and you and you and me –
our hopes for what will never be
our fears of what has never been.
While Scottish sun and moon and star
make us who and what we are,
all histories of this and that
are better left
to Scottish mouse and Scottish cat.
First read at the House of Lords, this poem celebrates the Authors’ Licensing and Collection Society and its thirty-five years’
defence of authors’ rights and moneys. A most noble and valued institution!
God Gives The Universe A Second Shove
Thirty-five years ago God gave his most recent universe
the once-over – a reality check
on all those protons, neutrons
and electrons who’d gone their own sweet way
since that First Divine Shove.
How, He wondered, were things shaping up?
Empires and pyramids. Paperclips.
Plastic. McDonalds.
Margaret Thatcher made Minister for Education!
Being omniscient, He knew even worse
was to come:
‘pirate downloads’ ‘e-books’
‘kindle’ ‘googled Chaucer’ ,
and beneath that neo-verbal clotted spew
of Devil’s spawn –
the Tomb of the Midlist Author.
… And so God wept.
God often weeps.
Often sighs,
then dries His eyes.
Then sleeps.
But in 1977, how could He settle back in heaven
when nations, unworthy of the name,
photocopied wholesale –
no second thoughts, no shame?
He’d heard of five-act plays,
of talks and stories that
were broadcast gratis worldwide –
no penny in the hat.
No rouble, drachma, lira, Thailand baht
came home to needy authors who
had grown papyrus pale-and-thin,
their royalties few
and far between. Live upon a publisher’s advance?
Some chance!
Not copyright, but copy-free’d become systemic,
from backstreet press to academic.
Moved by sorrow, God then acted out of Love –
and gave the universe a Second Shove.
Holy finger raised on high
He wrote a message in the sky,
letters in fire. Their meaning? Anybody’s guess –
A … L … C … S????
*
Fast forward to the present day,
this pleasure-land of politics at play
among the hedge funds,
where bailed-out bankers ease the strain
with extra magnums of champagne.
A threatened euro, falling pound?
Austerity the Master Plan?
– the logic’s pitiless
and no more sound
than keeping food from a starving man!
When common sense has lost all clout,
art cut to the bone and the bone cut out,
the likes of me and you
must write our best, keep true.
Nothing else will do.
Afterwards we’ll publish where we can,
then take our cue
from God –
We’ll all give thanks, and bless
ALCS!
