93/100 'with the bounty of salt and water.'

The fisherman holds a course clear of reef and crag.

‘I will come soon to the well-built stone pier

 – wind in the sail – with the bounty of salt and water.’ 

[from ‘The elemental stone’, George Mackay Brown, ‘Travellers’]

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']

77.5 /100 Granny chair

77/100 Fishermen in Winter

The islands, blind whales,

Blundered about us.   We heard

The surge and plunge

And the keening all around.

[from Fishermen in Winter, George Mackay Brown, The wreck of the Archangel]

73/100 red seepings of sunset

 In the first red seepings of sunset.

In the village windows, that twilight,

tinsel stars glittered.

[from ‘Yule’, George Mackay Brown, from 'Selected Poems 1954-1992']

65/100 Night steeples down

The stones of the desert town

Flush;  and, a star-filled wave,

Night steeples down.

[from ‘The lodging’, George Mackay Brown, from 'Selected Poems 1954-1992']

20/100 - A random, ribald song

From a pub door here and there

A random, ribald song

Leaks on the air

[from ‘The lodging’, George Mackay Brown, from 'Selected Poems 1954-1992']

off-topic because I am on holiday (currently Manchester airport)

11/100 It is a bitter house

It is a bitter house.  On the step

Birds starve

The sign over the door is warped

   and faded

[from House of Winter, George Mackay Brown, the wreck of the Archangel]

7/100 - your unpopular house

Tonight I am riding

To visit your unpopular house.

[v. 5, Twelfth-Century Norse Lyrics of Rognvald Kolson, Bard and Saint, George Mackay Brown,

from Selected Poems 1954-1992]

3/100 - Last night, late

 

What wandered about the star streets

Last night, late?

It knocked for shelter at doors of gold, like a lost boy.

My heart was bruised with the image.

['The Golden Door:  Three kings' George Mackay Brown, from 'Selected Poems 1954-1992']

2/100 - Too much midnight wine

I am waiting now at sunset, again, with my charts.

I had perhaps drunk too much midnight wine.

[from 'The Golden Door:  Three Kings', George Mackay Brown, 'Selected poems 1954-1992']

1/100 - Paint the town red

Folster found a girl

Who put lipstick wounds on his face and throat,

Small and diagonal, like red doves

['Hamnavoe Market' George Mackay Brown, from 'Selected Poems 1954-1992']