Tuesday, December 05, 2006

The King of the Tinkers


Sandy Cranstoun died of exposure on the night of Thursday 23rd November in a field near his home in Duncow. This poem was written a time ago with Sandy in mind.



The Men from Duncow



On Saturdays men with jackets
too checked to look upon
come down the hills from Duncow,
their hands corrugated or hung
over sticks like old oven gloves.

They are from impenetrable places,
runrig, dyke and quarry,
Rommel and Sicily,
from long lines of lives
stuck in monochrome.

Through drowned chipbags
and crying kids they come,
their talk arcane,
their existence in this
café bar a mystery.

They sit and soak up whisky
like blotters, until darkness
climbs over rooftops,
then they rise stiffly from the smoke
like metal men,

and the night, and the pub,
close again round
more comfortable themes,
faces flush with puggie light,
alcopops and plasma screens,


for time moves on and that’s a fact,
though the men from Duncow clamber back.

3 comments:

Stooshie said...

Very good Shug, nice phrases & echoes. How d'you write a poem again?

Stooshie said...

No, I don't think I knew Sandy, maybe I met him in the Wa' or Tam?

loradoll said...

Sandy was my dad, and I'm sure he would have liked this poem. He was proud to be the self confessed 'King of the Tinkers!' He wrote many poems in his time, and like this, were related to local folk and local themes. We're going to do something with them, so watch this space!