Stanza

What a fine weekend! Stayed above a pub, talked amazing rubbish at the poetry breakfast, and read in the poetry cafe, to sell out crowd. Even heard someone trying to swop a ticket for somebody else in order to get in! Saw Brian Johnstone, Kevin Williamson, the bold Rab Wilson, Don Paterson. Should have seen more, but there'll next year. And Scotland won and England got gubbed!

Theosyphillis Neill lost in Libyan mission

Concern is growing for Theosyphillis Neill who is reported missing in eastern Libya after a helicopter mission "to borrow a tenner" from anti-Gaddafi forces. A spokesman for the Government in Clatteringshaws admitted today "there has been a bit of a mix-up". It appears that in the early hours of yesterday morning, Neill, in spite of being escorted by highly trained special forces under the command of 'Tesco' Willie and Macduff, Ex-Territorial Army Cyborg Killing Machine (deceased), was apprehended by goatherds unaware of his highly sensitive diplomatic mission. "Mr Neill felt it was important to make contact with the new regime" said the spokesman, " because he already owes Gaddafi fifty quid". It is widely seen by analysts that the growth of anti government protest all over Northern Africa and the Middle East gives Neill the chance to drink all week long. Neill was last seen being bundled into a farm truck near Benghazi, shouting "I'll see you OK on Friday.

Crossroads

Many years ago when I left University, my tutor fixed me up with a job on a newspaper in Philadelphia. Didn't go. Wonder what it would have been like?




All in All I’d Rather



When there’s traffic in my mind,
I end up in Philadelphia,
strolling in the Avenue of the Arts
with a well groomed girl,
or punching the air like Rocky
on the steps of the Rodin Museum
at the sight of another by line
from Scoop McMillan.
As I eat hoagies in the
unusually mild weather this Fall,
I watch leaves slowly drift to sea.
At this point I’m interrupted by a bum.
What is a hoagie? he asks.
And what’s it like to be on the edge
of a humid subtropical zone?
He’s drunk again, and on Wikipedia,
and soon he’ll show me, irresistibly,
pictures of his home town.