Nov 3rd, 2009

Designer Lassie

Trochled roon’ wi
pradaguccichanel

paintit wee toes
in nippit Manolos

rid jaikit belted
sae tight she’s
fair pechin’

a mooth
like she’s sooked (more…)

Oct 30th, 2009

Jimmy McCutcheon & the picnic basket

Wid ye look at them?
Richt in front o’ a’body
they dinnae care

Aye weel, neither did we
me an’ Jimmy – Jimmy McCutcheon
wi’ his mammy’s best
picnic basket unner wan airm
an’ his ither
aroon ma waist

A’thing inside that basket wiz reed tartan
flask, paper plates, even spoon haunels (more…)

Oct 29th, 2009

Girdles, Semmits & Marlon Brando

The summer ah wiz fifteen
ah spent in Bains the Draper
wi’ Kate, mah co-conspirator
mah mither thocht her ‘ower knowin’
and she only kent the half o’ it

Oor young airms
polished the lang mahogany coonter
each mornin’
till ye could see yir face in it

Wrapped in tissue paper fir decency
we sold girdles
the colour o’ murdered lobsters (more…)

Oct 27th, 2009

A wumman watches frae her windae the struggle o’ a brave beastie

[Wi' a nod tae Bruce's cratur]

ower the hour’s fallin’
that eight leggit beastie
workin’ sae industrious

wan shank hingin’ oan
tae the silkety guyropes
while thithers mended
a web sair torn aboot
(more…)

Oct 26th, 2009

In memory of Betty

She wiz a wee wumman
wi’ a kind hairt
aye trying tae gie ye
somethin’ as a gift
feedin’ a’ the neebors’ cats
withoot fail
and they in return
adorin’ her
Betty’s Buffet
ah callt it
(more…)

Sep 12th, 2009

Skimming the Pond of Literature

I have a guilty reading secret. No no, not Barbara Cartland. I tried that once, eager not to appear a book snob, but I was bored beyond belief within two pages. No, my guilty reading secret is that I skim read.  The last book I read, a light, emotive novel, well-enough written if not earth-shatteringly brilliant, only took me about a day.  Because of all the actual words on the page, I really read only about 60% of them.

I blame it all on Tolstoy. For I can date this appalling habit to a few weeks in the summer when I was 17.  I was reading, for the first time, War and Peace.  It was one of the books that all my contemporaries were reading that year – you couldn’t claim to be part of the gang if you didn’t read certain books, and I so desperately wanted to be part of the gang.  I don’t remember what the other books were – I think Franny & Zooey had come and gone by then. Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth would be for the first year at college (more…)

Sep 10th, 2009

Ah sit oan mah bahookie

Ye want tae ken whit ah dae?
Ah sit oan mah bahookie greetin’
fir lang oors
an’ when ahm puggled
wi’ grief ‘n greetin’
ah coorie in wi’
an aul’ teddy whae’s in worse shape thin ah ahm (more…)

Sep 10th, 2009

Bipolar

A Maniac is a madman, right? And not just any madman, but a full-blown, escaped-from-the-asylum, Hammer-horror, axe-wielding madman. Tell me that’s not what you imagine when you read the word.

The early Greeks, who gave us the term, believed that madness was a divine punishment for former sins. Many psychiatric and psychological conditions include the word mania. And one of them is manic depression. Nowadays, it goes by a more politically correct (more…)

Sep 5th, 2009

It’s a Mug’s Game

I’ve been coming across the digital art I used to do.  My Diva in the Attic moniker began life there and the work varied from greetings cards to huge giclee canvasses.  My dear friends G and M have a living room full of my stuff, bless ‘em  – we joke that it’s the Diva Gallery!  A lot of it seems crude and uninteresting to me now – you know how it is when you move on – but I’ve found a few pieces that I still like.

I made a couple of designs to be printed onto mugs.  One was for a friend who was a keen gardener (more…)