Tag Archives: J M Brown

Just passing through The Benarty hills were covered with snow, the sky was blue and the air crisp and clean, No green sulphur fug, choking the life out of the inhabitants, No men gathering at the shops spitting their lungs … Continue reading →

In the field of opportunity (It’s tattie time again,} The pickers scrambled from the bus, gasping in the crisp October air. Children ran across the furrowed fields, kicking up dust and startled pheasants. The older women built small fires, soon … Continue reading →

Penitentiary Poem. Small groups huddled into corners, coats hitched over shaven heads. Others marched back and forth, military style. By noon a slither of sunlight beamed into a cobbled yard, shined by feet going nowhere. Men jostled to capture its … Continue reading →

Unrepentant smoker. Watchful, he scorned the world marijuana fumes drifting through a sliver of opened window. He scoured the news, his critical eye cross-referencing the cynical politics of people. He remained a dis-enchanted worker, never took the shilling, didn’t believe the guff and  bluster … Continue reading →

“Off the streets I dream of Spring” Late into the night the inmates arrived. six of them, high- heel booted, short skirted, giggling. The girls were put into the cell next to mine Cherry blossom, pink as a maiden’s blush. Within … Continue reading →

Ode To A Nightingaol Brain now dulled with throbbing pain laid low with drugs and liquor I had found. Stomach emptied in a putrid drain till Police arrive and Leith-wards I am bound. O for a pitcher full of ale … Continue reading →

Dependant A shadow limped towards the bar, a gentle soul, tall, rangy and pale as a moon. Mickey was a daytime drinker, a stranger to the night. The barman held the glass to the optic, passed the trembling frame its … Continue reading →

The angel of the vines.   Young, slim and summer brown, a student from Seville she moved into the row next to me, an old but tested ploy. Soon, well ahead, we slumped into the cooling canopy of vines, the older … Continue reading →

Alter Ego After a few glasses of wine, Clint appeared a dusty vagabond in the bar-room mirror, one tooth missing from a roguish smile, a star spangled bandana slipping over one eye. He’d just married a girl from Haiti, It … Continue reading →

SUNDAY MORNING OPENING TIME. An Easterly blows in from Siberia, rattling at the chains of an abandoned boat the rigging singing in the bitter wind, waves slapping on the hollow hull. Empty beer cans roll and tumble drumming into doorways, … Continue reading →