POEM OF THE DAY

ST ANDREWS-BORN Roddy Lumsden died in January at the age of 53. Here are two examples of how original – and sometimes a little disconcerting – his poetry was. They are from his collection Yeah Yeah Yeah (Bloodaxe Books, 1997).They can also be found in the Edinburgh Book of Twentieth-century Scottish Poetry (EUP, 2005).

VANISHING

Inside the box, her heels escape the air. He hears the hollow silence, turns to where

The blades are catching all eyes in the hush.

His click of fingers touches off a rush Of cymbals. Now he holds the first blade taut

And steers its whetted edge toward the slot.

She slips out of her costume, checks her face

As he reveals the white dove in her place.

She lingers till the last of the applause, Collects her things, while back on stage he saws

Himself in half with worry, grins with fear. The sea of faces knows she’ll reappear Amongst them soon. She slams a backstage door.

Her heels echo in the corridor.

YEAH YEAH YEAH

No matter what you did to her, she said, There’s times, she said, she misses you, your face

Will pucker in her dream, and times the bed’s

Too big. Stray hairs will surface in a place You used to leave your shoes. A certain phrase,

Some old song on the radio, a joke

You had to be there for, she said, some days

It really gets to her; the way you smoked Or held a cup, or her, and how you woke Up crying in the night sometimes, the way

She’d stroke and hush you back, and how you broke

Her still. All this she told me yesterday, Then she rolled over, laughing, began to do

To me what she rarely did with you.