Edwin Morgan

Edwin Morgan (born 1920) is a Glaswegian poet associated with the Scottish Renaissance era of poetry. In 1999 he was made the very first Poet Laureate of Glasgow, and more recently in 2004 he became the first 'Makar' for Scotland. Here are some of my favourite works by him.

'Kiss me...'

Kiss me with the rain on your eyelashes,
come on, let us sway together,
under the trees, and to hell with thunder.

A recent writing of Morgan's, from the Scottish Poetry Library's 2004 Valentine's Day text poem project.

Glasgow Sonnet I

A mean wind wanders through the backcourt trash.
Hackles on puddles rise, old mattresses
puff briefly and subside. Play-fortresses
of brick and bric-a-brac spill out some ash.
Four storeys have no windows left to smash,
but in the fifth a chipped sill buttresses
mother and daughter the last mistresses
of that black block condemned to stand, not crash.
Around them the cracks deepen, the rats crawl.
The kettle whimpers on a crazy hob.
Roses of mould grow from ceiling to wall.
The man lies late since he has lost his job,
smokes on one elbow, letting his coughs fall
thinly into an air too poor to rob.

Taken from 1990's Collected Poems (published by Carcanet Press in Manchester)

In the Snack-Bar

A cup capsizes along the formica,
slithering with a dull clatter.
A few heads turn in the crowded evening snack-bar.
An old man is trying to get to his feet
from the low round stool fixed to the floor.
Slowly he levers himself up, his hands have no power.
He is up as far as he can get. The dismal hump
looming over him forces his head down.
He stands in his stained beltless gaberdine
like a monstrous animal caught in a tent
in some story. He sways slightly,
the face not seen, bent down
in shadow under his cap.
Even on his feet he is staring at the floor
or would be, if he could see.
I notice now his stick, once painted white
but scuffed and muddy, hanging from his right arm.
Long blind, hunchback born, half paralysed
he stands
fumbling with the stick
and speaks:
‘I want – to go to the – toilet.’

It is down two flights of stairs, but we go.
I take his arm. ‘Give me – your arm – it’s better,’ he says.
Inch by inch we drift towards the stairs.
A few yards of floor are like a landscape
to be negotiated, in the slow setting out
time has almost stopped. I concentrate
my life to his: crunch of spilt sugar,
slidy puddle from the night’s umbrellas,
table edges, people’s feet,
hiss of the coffee-machine, voices and laughter,
smell of a cigar, hamburgers, wet coats steaming,
and the slow dangerous inches to the stairs.
I put his right hand on the rail
and take his stick. He clings to me. The stick
is in his left hand, probing the treads.
I guide his arm and tell him the steps.
And slowly we go down. And slowly we go down.
White tiles and mirrors at last. He shambles
uncouth into the clinical gleam.
I set him in position, stand behind him
and wait with his stick.
His brooding reflection darkens the mirror
but the trickle of his water is thin and slow,
an old man’s apology for living.
Painful ages to close his trousers and coat –
I do up the last buttons for him.
He asks doubtfully, ‘Can I – wash my hands?’
I fill the basin, clasp his soft fingers round the soap.
He washes, feebly, patiently. There is no towel.
I press the pedal of the drier, draw his hands
gently into the roar of the hot air.
But he cannot rub them together,
drags out a handkerchief to finish.
He is glad to leave the contraption, and face the stairs.
He climbs, and steadily enough.
He climbs, we climb. He climbs
with many pauses but with that one
persisting patience of the undefeated
which is the nature of man when all is said.
And slowly we go up. And slowly we go up.
The faltering, unfaltering steps
take him at last to the door
across that endless, yet not endless waste of floor.
I watch him helped on a bus. It shudders off in the rain.
The conductor bends to hear where he wants to go.

Wherever he could go it would be dark
and yet he must trust men.
Without embarrassment or shame
he must announce his most pitiful needs
in a public place. No one sees his face.
Does he know how frightening he is in his strangeness
under his mountainous coat, his hands like wet leaves
stuck to the half-white stick?
His life depends on many who would evade him.
But he cannot reckon up the chances,
having one thing to do,
to haul his blind hump through these rains of August.
Dear Christ, to be born for this!

Originally from The Second Life from 1968 (Edinburgh University Press), but latterly published in the anthology Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1990). One of my favourite works for many reasons, especially when it comes to giving a voice to someone who may struggle to speak for themselves. A sweet poem about a poor old man.

When You Go

When you go,
if you go,
and I should want to die,
there's nothing I'd be saved by
more than the time
you fell asleep in my arms
in a trust so gentle
I let the darkening room
drink up the evening, till
rest, or the new rain
lightly roused you awake.
I asked if you heard the rain in your dream
and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.

Originally from The Second Life from 1968 (Edinburgh University Press), but latterly published in the anthology Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1990).This is said to have been written by Morgan for his long-term partner, John Scott. The same can be said about his poem 'Strawberries' which is featured below.

Strawberries

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates
laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

Originally from The Second Life from 1968 (Edinburgh University Press), but latterly published in the anthology Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 1990).

Edwin on the Instamatic Poems

"I tend to… cultivate some small area like that fairly intensively for a while and then perhaps just simply drop it and do something else altogether. The same thing is happening at the moment with what I call my Instamatic Poems. I began a while ago by writing short poems which were directly about events which I had either read about or seen in newspapers or on television. So it's a poetry which is very closely related to real life in that sense, but I gave myself the kind of restriction that the poem must be presented in such a way as to give a visual picture of this event, whatever it was, as if somebody had been there with an Instamatic camera and had just very quickly snapped it…"

Taken from Nothing Not Giving Messages (Polygon, 1990), pp.26-27

Glasgow 5 March 1971

With a ragged diamond
of shattered plate-glass
a young man and his girl
are falling backwards into a shop-window.
The young man's face
is bristling with fragments of glass
and the girl's leg has caught
on the broken window
and spurts arterial blood
over her wet-look white coat.
Their arms are starfished out
braced for impact,
their faces show surprise, shock,
and the beginning of pain.
The two youths who have pushed them
are about to complete the operation
reaching into the window
to loot what they can smartly.
Their faces show no expression.
It is a sharp clear night
in Sauchiehall Street.
In the background two drivers
keep their eyes on the road.

From Instamatic Poems (Ian McKelvie, 1972), but also published in Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1990).