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Sunday 30 September 2012

88/100 ‘a ship of Irish monks’




We gave heads and tails of monkfish
To a ship of Irish monks
They gave us a blessing
Cleaner and brighter than a jumping salmon.

[from Trinity: Sailing to Greenland: Monkfish, George Mackay Brown, ‘Travellers’]

Saturday 29 September 2012

87/100 'languid as snowflakes'




Dark water.   Ropes glittered with night frost.  
The ship lingered, languid as snowflakes.

[from Voyage:  The months, George Mackay Brown, The wreck of the Archangel]

Friday 28 September 2012

86/100 Congregate ghosts




‘What happened here?  
 Congregate ghosts, among the weathered and cracked stones.  
 Take my mouth, speak.
[from Four kinds of poet, 3, George Mackay Brown, ‘Travellers’]

Thursday 27 September 2012

85/100 Sagas of salt and stone




Sea, old sculptor, carves from the western ramparts
Stack and cave and skerry
Sweep harpist, with sagas of salt and stone.

[from ‘Haiku for the Holy Places, George Mackay Brown, ‘Travellers’]


Wednesday 26 September 2012

84/100 Erling glides in a trance




And as for thy brothers, one
Has a skull square as an ox,
And Erling glides in a trance
Through bell and psalm and secret,
A cold mouth in the godstreams.

[from ‘Rose’, The five voyages of Arnor, 3, Viking Testament, George Mackay Brown, 'Selected poems 1952-1992']

Tuesday 25 September 2012

83/100 And tatters of blood


I bought the horse in Dublin.
Seven times
It reared against horn and shield-wall
Now that it's hide and bone, that nag,
And tatters of blood
I am walking back to the town.

[from 'Orkneymen at Clontarf, AD 1014, George Mackay Brown, 'Selected poems 1952-1992']

Monday 24 September 2012

82/100 - our labouring urgency


The sun sets on our labouring urgency.
We hurry to find an inn
with fire and bottle, fish and bread.
[Homily, from the Foresterhill sequence, George Mackay Brown, from 'Selected Poems 1954-1992']

Sunday 23 September 2012

81/100 The forty-fifth stone


What broke from the cloud?
Rain, sun, the hawk.
A stone walks under a cloud slowly.

[from Brodgar Poems, George Mackay Browm, 'Selected Poems, 1954-1992]