By Jim Paterson
It says it’s 36ºC outside
so no worries about the washing drying.
The weather can be a bluffer,
but three years into this drought,
I doubt it’s gonna rain in the next half hour.
The sky is a sunny kind of leaden
hammering the south-facing shutters
across the valley, leaving me in the shade in the a/c.
Oh for a cloud! a strip of shade
to walk in, a wee breeze to stir the trees.
As the sun sets I collect the clothes.
No rush, no showers –
shorts unvisited by the busy ants,
t-shirts inspected and rejected by a carpenter bee.
On, almost in, a sock, a gecko sits, unmoving
as a ploy to fool me or a mosquito.
The moment I move to the basket it has gone
to the shed, more its than mine.
The hibiscus flowers, opened last week
in a ten-minute shower, keep it tight,
but the leaves show their distress.
A pastis.
By Jim Paterson
In the toilets at the GOMA
two empty tins
o Tennent’s lager.
Installed.
By Jim Paterson
It’s an encoding.
And you have to wonder
or maybe judge
if the drinking makes you part of the process
or if you will change its taste.
Whatever, whatever.
It is so that the opening,
pouring, look,
halations, odour, taste
are all replete with words
and distillation is a process of locking in connotations
which accrete to cask-strength.
Beyond that it’s just clatter.