For a time I lived in a room in Edinburgh. I had a view over a marvellous street, where I would sit after work and watch the sun dip behind the regimen rows of chimney pots. Being four storeys up gave me a privileged bird eye vantage. I always marvelled at the amount of road works, past and present, and the visual legacy they left behind: a patchwork of lines, rectangles of varying hues and textures. Across this quilt the living moved, their legs snipped between the traffic, and I was inspired to write this piece by the rhythm of it all.
Dave Migman is a writer and stone carver based in Edinburgh. His work has appeared in a number of online and offline journals. His novel, The Wolf stepped Out, is available from Doghorn Publishing. Dave is fascinated by collaborations of music and spoken word.
the rhetoric unfurls in
rubber over patched road
in attitude of red heads
sutures on junky arms
blind eyes and dog spot
ration tubs of chip fat
oily secretions from organic
machines, the unyielding eye
of beauty queens, of the no-
thing in-betweens, a vapid
mist, beneath sodium glare
sea gull black wing morning
fox musk, king cone crowns
for drunken clowns
the seismic undulations of
every foot in town
going, coming, outing, flowing
the air fudged by gesticulating
shop holy gurus getting
hip with advertising platitudes
jigging up, joggers down, lonely
men on missions of hope
glance through restaurant windows
and wilt, that the evening holds
sorrow and joy they cannot express
but a tear sears the eye
and hijacks a scene
how many of us are cornered
in marvellous rooms? Watching
cars serenade the lights
those cars have names
they are rooms on the move
they hiss to the tarmac
they kick start the movement
to stake out the night
rich with the gathering sound
