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Scots Language Centre Centre for the Scots Leid

Quasimodo

The sweet rot o the bramble buss,
Scratched entanglement o firs,
Places o half licht,
Are jungles o concealment.
Shaddaes, lang i the sun,
Cannibalised, amang a wab o jylers.
A wounded boar, riven wi spears
Will drag its dreepin spoor
Alang the daithly puddock steel
Far few daur gang.
I turn my spears, in their kent agonies
Watchin them bleed in secret;
Drag my Achilles heel,
Disdainin calipers,
The quasimodo hump, sae weel
Attached, I canna lay it doon,
An wid be tint wi’oot …
True Tammas, wi his honest tongue
Sisyphus, wi his stane,
The fykes an flecks o
An ill load, culled,
In the pebble wame,
Oot-scalin o insanity.
Cauld comfort,
Wi the cosie name,
o poetry.