Hurrah I can write poetry on my blog again! Always thought the Salutation Hotel viewed from across the bridge looks, if you;re drunk enough, like Venice. The brilliant Chrissie Fergusson, as you can see below, agreed.

The Balcony of the Salutation Hotel

There’s a balcony in Dumfries,
between cypresses,
above the black wall of river,
and when the sun’s hung above it,
no doubt at all it’s Venice,
and from Venice isn’t it just a step,
when the light falls on water
like shining pieces of a mirror,
to happiness?
It’s nothing like Venice, you say,
when you’re up there it’s freezing
and unsafe,
but so is dreaming
and there are rats,
rats too, in Venice and in dreaming.
The thing is, you’re thinking
of the Venice in that lagoon,
at the top of the Adriatic,
not the one in my brain where,
lit by electrical impulses
like the Lido at night from Sant‘ Elena,
we will have love and poetry all year long.