Saturday 24 September 2011

Poem: Aberdeen

My memories of Scotland's third city are almost all good. My first decent job was working offshore, and in Aberdeen the sun always seemed to shine on the incorruptible granite. It was cold in winter winds, but more welcoming to me than the wet, decaying streets of Glasgow that reeked of unemployment and self-doubt, streets which I had gladly fled. On the other hand, Aberdeen was stony soil for a person with an artistic temperament.

I did not tell my offshore colleagues I wrote poetry...

I wake with clear conscience.
Clear and solid the way to work
People of bright granite
Your city all a body wants
I'll go for a drink with my friends
Check the women, cruise the mat
the steady gaze of an honest day
hands dirty with pride
No imagination.
Satisfied.


2 comments:

blueskyscotland said...

Brings back memories.My Hopes were dashed early in Aberdeen when on holiday there with my parents when I was about twelve.
My Dad and I were going to get up at 6.00am next morning and go down to explore the busy fish market.A very attractive fourteen year old,also on holiday with her disabled mother at the same guest house asked if she could tag along with us....Needless to say we slept in to be told she,d already been with another family of teenagers who all seemed very happy at lunch.
Such is life...And I was so looking foreward to seeing those boxes of fish!
bob.

Robert Craig said...

Bob - ah young love! My memories of Aberdeen were not so romantic - when I used to walk to work from my hotel I would pass a pub on the corner of the docks with a message in the window to come and see their stripper at 8am... I can recall the reek of fish coming out the doors still.