[Here is a poem about a place I’ve been and seen and drunk in, along with some music to match]
Edinburgh
City of dreams and sloping pagan peaks in a city
Gigantic sea-shanty sized voices with looping arr sounds
Turbulent winter snow drifts
Warming whisky tumblers filled with smoky graceful ease
Like a cream coloured negligee it slides down the back of my throat
At the bottom of Calton Hill there’s moss growing in the shadows
At the bottom of the Cowgate there’s lust that grows there on a saturday night
At the top of the gables and medieval skyline grows general majesty
The ode to history can never be humble
Where in spring there’s purple thistle
Swaying so closely to Princes St
And the pruned neat and tidy street posies
Belie the hidden ghettos out on Westerhailes
Follow around the Water of Leith
Swimming down, around, swimming tadpole west
The canals of Edinburgh eventually slide towards West Lothian
And from thence out to the ocean.
Wide outwards towards possiblity
Filled with water fowl, the washing suds and sorry bones of the 19th Century.
Who keeps track of what goes in there.
Who knows what sinks below to the bottom of the silt
Stay in your tartan walled pub and watch as the world slides by.
Somewhat modern, somewhat ancient.
Always Edinburgh.
Note: I don’t hold the copyright to the exceptional ambient album The Disintegration Loops by William Basinski, but it seemed appropriate.
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