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Wednesday 25 January 2012

A Man For A' That

Words
like movements in the air
are vibrant
or with dead sound hang
like air turned sour
and poets who would move the heart
put pen to paper to create
the softest of all breezes
a wind
a gale
a tempest made of words.

Today - tonight more truly - we salute
a gale-maker supreme
one Robbie Burns. For him
flames burn with words
burns run
or trickle
scramble over rocks
or overflow with words
and there is freshness in the air.

Words burn themselves into our consciousness.

And greater honour yet,
the ultimate:
a pizza for the bard!
To modernise his suppers
the haggis pizza comes:
The Cosmo haggis pizza
as it's called -
available
in Scottish supermarkets for
the cognoscenti Scots.

14 comments:

sunny said...

Hi Mr Dave,excellent poem.

JeannetteLS said...

Where and how do you find these things in your brain? It must be a disconcerting place for you to live, inside that brain.

But thanks for letting it spill out into a form we get to read. "To modernise his suppers/the haggis pizza comes:"

Yes. How can I NOT smile at those words right there?

"Suloo" is my word verification. I said it as if I were on a mountain, trying to be heard. "SuLOOOOOO" listening for the echo.

Sorry. Never mind!

Madeleine Begun Kane said...

Wonderful job!

Tabor said...

You had me...until haggis pizza!

Mary said...

Well, I for one would pass on 'haggis pizza.' LOL.

Kass said...

Like Jeannette, I too muse over the contents of your head.

Delightful outpouring.

Ygraine said...

Dave, I so adore this poem!
Your incredible talent never ceases to amaze me.
How I'd love to have the ability to paint a picture in words as vividly as this.
I will be reading this one over and over again.
It is simply wonderful :)

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

Absolutely amazing. I should read Robert Burns immediately after this trying to overcome his, sometimes for me, difficult language.

But "A pizza for the bard" raised this poem to a marvellous "hymn level" and "words burn themselves into our consciousness" is just simple and perfect.

Windsmoke. said...

This is the first time i've heard of a haggis pizza, i just can't imagine what it would taste like, it sounds like an aquired taste :-).

Dulcina said...

The song "Is There for Honest Poverty", yes, what a good homage to its author!
Robert Burns, that advocate for Scottish Independence, had a suitable surname, indeed, and your poem blows like a burning flame.

"A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and all that!
But an honest man is above his might -
Good faith, he must not fault that
For all that, and all that,
Their dignities, and all that,
The pith of sense and pride of worth
Are higher rank than all that."

Such a good ode to humanity!
My fav version is this one by The McCalmans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQFpkqLI4GY
Your merit has been mixing past & present, offering the Bard a Cosmo haggis pizza, so so good!
If we cannot move the heart we cannot be considered poets.
And yes, sometimes we are breezes, others winds and when we write asking for justice, in rage, we are
gales or terrible tempests; it's our job, our mission, our fate.
I wonder if your use of "cognoscenti" referred to the Scots is a compliment or a sarcasm.
By the way, are you in favour of their independence...?
:)

Titus said...

Cracking Dave! I'm awash with haggis at the moment, so I'll pass on the pizza if that's OK.

Carl said...

Hmmm. HaggisPizza....

wonderful tribute and fun at same time.

haricot said...

Yes I also think words are special nourishment for us. Whichever the man was a spesific person or a poet, a Scotch maybe, the power of words worth tasting .

Dave King said...

sunny
Thanks a lot sunny. Good to have your comments.

Jeanette
I think it's more that they find me. I sometimes sit down to write with no idea what to write about. At such times I feel like the priest who began hiis sermon with: "On my way here tonight only God and I knew what I was going to say. Now only God knows." I'm glad the pizza made you smile, it did me also when I read about it in the paper. I have longthought there was some element of web synchronicity in the formulation of those word verification codes.

Thanks for your response.

Madeleine
Thanks. Much appreciated.

Tabor
I thought a lot of Burns fans might be saying the same thing. Unbelievable! (Read Hugh MacDiarmid's great "A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle" for a humourous take on Burn's Nights.

Mary
You and I both, then.

Kass
That's you two and the guys in white coat,s then.

Ygraine
Well, thank you SO much. Every blogging would-be poet should have a visitor like you.

Mama Zen
Thanks. I found it fun writing it.

Tommaso
Much thanks for those encouraging words. Greatly appreciated.

Windsmoke
First time I'd ever heard of it also.

Dulcina
Many thanks for all that - There for Honest Poverty in particular. I shall definitely chase up the reference.

Ah, the sting is in the tail! Difficult to be against their independence if that is what they truly want, but whether I am actively for it, I have not quite decided. In the end it will come down to the small print of how and under what conditions the separation occurs. RBS being one potential sticking point, I think.

Titus
I just canna picture someone awash with haggis... s it a good feeling?

Carl
agreed - still can't decide what Rabbie would have made of it though...

haricot
Well said, yes I agree.